


Making Choices

by brutti_ma_buoni



Category: CW Network RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Reality TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:07:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4106914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/pseuds/brutti_ma_buoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen, feeling trapped in his current life and blocked in his writing career, volunteers to be a contestant on a new reality show: Fifteen Choices (to change your life). With the choices made by the great television-viewing public. Jensen is a little wary of just what that might mean, especially when the very first choice means he gets transplanted way out of his comfort zone – to another continent, even. The show forces a new choice every week, imposing an artificial structure on Jensen’s world that doesn’t always sit well. But the show also gives him a mentor for his new life, and honestly? Jensen thinks the guy might be the best thing life could ever have thrown at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part of SPN J2 Big Bang 2015, which means there is glorious artwork to go alongside the fic - go here to see it and tell the artist it's gorgeous! http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/158415.html
> 
> Warnings: Passing flippant semi-conscious homophobia from the people working on the show. Minor character in an unhappy relationship, and some possible infidelity feels due to demands of the TV production setup.

**Who I am and why I am here**

“Hi, I’m Jensen Ackles. I’m thirty-four, I’m gay, I’m single. I live in Texas. So, yeah. That’s been going great for me.” 

He smiles wryly. The production assistant pauses the video and makes a note. _Cute. Very, very cute. Not too camp, and we needed a gay guy, right? Smiles well. Might need to cut the anti-Texas thing?_

She plays on. “I love good company. I love family. I’m a writer, but that doesn’t pay all the rent so I also work freelance as a copywriter, which takes me all kinds of places. And also sometimes means I sit at home or in a coffeeshop for days at a time and maybe forget to shower if it’s a tight deadline.” The face he makes is charming. The production assistant underlines the word ‘cute’. Twice. 

“I like my life,” Jensen says, but his expression is sobering. “But- But I guess I didn’t see myself being single at this age. My friends and family are all settled down, a lot of them have kids. They’re awesome. I’m really happy for them. But-“ He stops. “This is really hard to admit, you know? But I’m lonely. Really lonely. I haven’t been in a real relationship for three years, and I’m starting to fear that this is it for me. Like, I missed the bus, and now there’s nobody out there who would want-“ He stops again. “Okay, that’s way too confessional.”

The production assistant notes, _Likes to talk, but not 100% open. We’d have to work on that._

Jensen says, “I guess, I read the ad for _Fifteen Choices to Change Your Life_ , and I thought, I haven’t been doing so well alone. Maybe it’s time to let some other guys in on the decisions. Maybe it’s time to be brave. Maybe it’s exactly what I need, to change my life: let some other people make those choices for me. Sometimes friends and family, they know you pretty well, but they have all these assumptions about who you are, based on some shit, uh, something that happened in college, or how you were first day at high school, or that bad breakup when you were twenty-five, or whatever. Maybe it’s time to let some strangers tell me what they think. I’m open to that.”

The production assistant notes, _Call for interview_. She underlines that twice too. 

*

“Come in, Jensen,” says Nicole. She watches him move. Camera will totally work with that. And he’s pretty. They need some contestants to be pretty, to get the coverage they have in mind. He’ll take a beautiful close-up, this guy. Unless he’s totally bland, he’s already on her longlist. 

“Hey,” he says, shaking hands politely, and waiting for Nicole to sit. “I’m glad to be here.” He smiles at her, and it’s a very good feeling. 

She tells herself to calm down and get professional about this. “I’ve seen your audition tape, obviously, and had your responses to our questionnaire. You’re single, you’re able to move home at short notice, you’re willing to try new things and even consider a change of career. So we know your basic suitability for the show. But we have a lot of suitable people interested. Tell us why we should pick you.”

Jensen rubs the bridge of his nose, eyes closing briefly. Nicole thinks, _Jesus, that’s why we should pick you, babe_ , but she tries not to let it show. He is ridiculously cute.

“Because I’m open to anything,” he says, finally. “I truly want to let myself go, let other people guide me for a little while. I guess I’ve been building up with frustration for longer than I knew. So I’m up for this. I got nothing to hold me back. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Nicole hopes to hell her poker face is holding up. Maybe they can send him to NYC, get him into a fetish club? That line is too perfect not to use. But then, they don’t yet know what the audience for _Fifteen Choices_ will be. Might be they want him to settle with the boy next door, if there is one. It's a gamble, when you're launching something this high-concept and costly. You never know if audiences will go for outrageous or the opposite. 

“You understand this will be pretty intense, right? This format asks a lot of you, for you to give up control of your life for a significant period. We won’t pick up your daily expenses; this is actually your life. We’ll film for at least a month for the setup, depending on how complex the relocations are, and then it’ll be a weekly choice that the audience will make, for up to three months, depending on when you get voted off the live show. If you were voted off first round, you would most likely have moved cities to a place with potentially no support network for you. Are you willing for that to happen?” 

Jensen shrugs it off, which a lot of contestants haven’t done when spelled out that baldly. “My work’s pretty portable. If I get stuck, I can just keep up with some old clients till I can make new contacts. And there’s the whole benefit of getting off my ass and going someplace new, even if it doesn’t take me any further with the show. I’m good with that.”

Nicole nods. Good. “Now, you understand a part of the show is having an old-life mentor and a new, right? We’ll obviously recruit your new mentor in the place you get settled, that’s a part of the format. But we do need someone from your current life to be willing to appear on the show, give their take on situations. Do you have someone who would-“

He interrupts her too fast, but laughing. “God, yeah. Danni put me in for this thing in the first place. She’s my oldest friend. She’s amazing. She also has two kids under four, with another on the way, and she’s going stir crazy at home. She’s gonna love this.”

“Do you have a picture?”

The picture totally seals it, though Nicole tries to preserve her poker face. Danneel Harris is right up there with America’s most beautiful. This Ackles guy brings the pretty all round. And they definitely need a gay guy. Diversity’s important. 

The interview doesn’t end there, because Nicole’s not a pushover. But she’s pretty certain she has one of their fifteen contestants, right here.

*

**First Choice: Location, Relocation**

“Welcome, everyone,” says Astrella, and Jensen looks over with relief. He’s been wondering when the milling and chatting would end, and the actual choices would start. Working in TV turns out to be about 95% bored insincerity, and okay, he is getting a big benefit out of this show, but he’s not completely sure it will be worth all the posing and make up and re-re-retakes.

Some of the other contestants, too – they’re a little wacky for Jensen’s taste. Like this is more a freakshow than the social experiment it was billed as. God, he already signed a contract saying he’d follow the show rules for up to six months, and he can’t afford to break it. This was stupid. He’s an idiot. His life wasn’t _that_ broken, not really. He could have found a guy and some inspiration, without national television to help. Or, more likely, not help.

Danni squeezes his elbow. “You’re okay, babe,” she says. “This is going to be the best.” Jensen hugs her, silently thanking her, and notices Aldis is filming it all. Aldis is Jensen’s personal cameraman for this thing. Luckily, he seems less of a freak than most, so having him all up in Jensen’s space for maybe a half year won’t be the worst part of this. The filming, though, is just a part of the whole. And Jensen’s still panicking. 

Astrella claps her hands. “People, we need to make a start. Please assemble, contestant plus mentor, and we’ll introduce you to our studio audience.”

The studio audience, well trained by the warmup guys, hoots with excitement, applauding themselves. Jensen feels ill. This bunch of performing seals are about to decide his future. 

Astrella is working her way around the group, introducing shy Noelle, brash Mike, over-eccentric Terese, and she’s almost to Jensen. “Last chance to make a break,” Danni whispers, and pretends to straighten Jensen’s collar. Which is already perfect, thank you. Jensen doesn’t need this kind of mothering. Danni just hasn’t realised she does it, now that she’s a full-time mom. It’s not the only reason he wants to move on, but it’s a reminder.

He grins at Danni, and turns to wave at the audience as Astrella Dupree says his name. Pretty fucking amazing start to a new life, honestly. He’s gonna be good. 

He has to be.

Eventually, all the introductions are completed. Main filming stops. Production assistants descend like locusts, tweaking and fixing and making Jensen’s skin itch with the fiddling changes. But they seem like they know just what to do, and the break isn’t unbearable this time. Maybe that’s just Jensen’s fear talking, though, because this is taking him closer to the moment when the first choice gets made. Gets made _for him_

Astrella gets the go from the producers, and all the individual camera crews home in on their designated targets, seeking close ups and reaction shots as Astrella runs the audience (and the eventual programme viewers) through the rules. It won’t usually be a live audience that makes the choices, but this is all about setting up the broadcast series. That’ll be a weekly viewer vote, on decisions about everyone’s lives. Least popular vote doesn’t follow through, as whoever’s life failed to generate audience interest will be knocked out. The rest just keep on making choices – or rather, having choices made for them. Every time Jensen thinks that, his pulse kicks up another notch.

Tonight (it’s actually about 2 p.m., but the show is an evening one, and everyone has been saying ‘tonight’ since filming started at 9 a.m., so Jensen’s pretty discombobulated by now), the choice is a simple one. Where do the contestants go to start their new Choice Lives? 

Jensen’s lightly shuffled into the last group to hear their fates. He knows some contestants have asked not to go far from home, and guesses (rightly) that they will be the first to be voted on. Selena will move from suburbia to a downtown apartment in her hometown. Michal relocates to a hunting lodge to live among nature the way he can’t in his current small town. They look pretty pleased.

Choices get bigger as the first ten contestants are assigned. State lines are crossed. Jensen watches how the old-life mentors get less and less comfortable with the choices the audience make, as they lose control of friends and family. Noelle’s mom almost cries as Noelle is moved from Arizona to Wisconsin. They don’t have a lot of money, he thinks, so that probably means they won’t see each other for the duration of the programme, unless Noelle can get the production company to spring for airplane tickets. His stomach churns a little. This isn’t just going to be fun; some of it’s going to be hard.

Fourth from last gets moved to Hawaii. She looks thrilled. He’s now in the last three. That means they want him to do something really big. The third ahead, Geena or Teena or something, moves from Florida to San Francisco, having said she wanted a change of climate, a change of scenery, whatever. She looks pleased. Really pleased. Jensen tries to freeze his face in polite interest, but _shit_. That’s the kind of move he wanted for himself. If not San Fran maybe New York or Boston or Seattle. But they won’t move another southerner to a big coastal city, will they? Too similar. 

He’s one of the last two. He’s not the second-to-last to go up. That’s Axel, who gets assigned… Vancouver? They’re sending Axel to fucking _Canada_? And the choice the audience had to make was between Vancouver, London, Mumbai or Sydney.

Jensen signed a thing stating his limitations on what choices could be made for him. Some were easy – he won’t date girls, for example, because he did that when he was fifteen and it didn’t go well for anyone, and he won’t eat brains or other offal, because eeuuw, and he won’t accept a job working with heights, because fear. But he didn’t put any limitations on location. 

He literally never fucking dreamed they would send him out of his country. He doesn’t even have a passport, as far as he knows. Pretty sure it expired a couple years back. Shit. Shit. _Shit_.

They’re interviewing Danni now. The crease in her brow tells Jensen she’s working out what this is leading up to. “I think Jensen’s full of adventure. But he doesn’t speak other languages so good-“ Bullshit, Jensen speaks Spanish. Sort of. He can order coffee, and beer, and apologise, and all kinds of shit. 

He’s not supposed to swear. Trying to remember that is getting harder and harder. Jensen bites his lip hard enough to taste blood, and notices Aldis focusing on his face. Wow. They’re really expecting some reaction from him, huh?

Danni’s saying, “But I think it would be amazing for him to go somewhere else. Somewhere romantic, where he could get inspiration. I love Jensen’s work, but I know he’s frustrated sometimes at how his life so far doesn’t let him write from experience.” 

Shit, they’re going to send him to the rainforest or something. Shit. Danni then giggles and says, “But, you know, he’s a city boy, and if you take Jensen too far from espresso and wifi, you’re not going to get something good. So, please don’t do that. He once went to bed for two weeks over summer break when I took him to my parents’ cabin in the woods, you know? That’s not entertaining.” 

Jensen watches as the studio audience is presented with his choices. The first one is Ascension Island, which he has never fucking heard of. He wants to puke. Then there’s Paris. And Rio. And Casablanca. And Venice. Man, he never ever thought he’d get these chances. But-

“Jensen?” says Astrella. “Do you have an option to remove?”

“Yeah,” he says, fast and kind of angry, because this is not cool. “I’d like to not live in a country where it’s illegal to be gay. No thanks, Casablanca.”

The audience sort of gasps, and mumbles, and Jensen wonders whether it was really a fuckup from the production staff or if he was always supposed to write that one off, to get a reaction and leave Jensen pushed into a corner. It leaves him some interesting choices, that’s for sure. Or it would, if they were choices. (And if the production company actually did fuck up, he’s worried. Really worried. He’s sort of trusting them with his life, here. Better manipulative than sloppy, really.)

Then it’s Danni’s turn. She asks for more information about Ascension, and on hearing just how remote it is (seriously, god, Jensen feels nauseous at the thought of a society that small, when he wanted his life to be expanding), she chooses that as her big no. Which wasn’t really a choice either, Jensen realises, given everything Danni and he have said about where he should be sent. So, manipulative, then. That’s… reassuring. Not. 

Danni’s asked for some last words, to help the audience make their choices. “Jensen speaks Spanish,” she says, contradicting herself of five minutes back, which almost makes him laugh aloud. “So I guess, Rio would be good?” 

“They speak Portuguese,” he says, like a reflex, and Aldis definitely caught that and the eyeroll. 

“I think Rio,” Danni says, more sure. “Jensen’s never really talked about Europe, and the French, I don’t like what I hear about their manners.” Jensen wants to beat his head against a wall. Probably that’s great TV, whatever his face is doing. He’s enjoying watching Danni because it’s distracting him from what’s going on here. How his life isn’t getting a tweak or a kick so much as being pushed off a cliff. Jesus, he was an idiot to sign up for this.

The studio audience watches short clips of life in the three cities: a montage of beaches and fiesta from Rio, boulevards and baguettes for Paris, canals and cafes for Venice. “Make Jensen’s first Choice _now_ ,” says Astrella, and the thirty-second countdown clock ticks away to the biggest decision Jensen has ever made.

He’s hoping for Rio. What he gets is Venice.

Jensen’s going to Italy, apparently. Amazing. He kind of wants to throw up right now, please.

*

**Second Choice: New-life mentor**

The Piazza San Marco is full of pigeons and selfie sticks, and Jensen is- He's not unhappy, but this doesn't feel real. Sure, he signed up for a TV show not real life, but this? This is some kind of fish out of water tourist documentary, and Jensen's the sacrificial lamb- wait, his metaphors just went AWOL. Oh well. He'll get a few months of living here. That'll be amazing. It's not exactly free, since he's supposedly living off his own money, the earnings from whatever job he gets assigned, plus anything he can make himself. In practice, he hears that's bull, and all kinds of contestants are being secretly subsidised, because living off ramen and cheese whizz isn't telegenic. So, kind of a career break, writer's retreat, and maybe he'll get something from Venice that ten thousand writers before him haven't spotted. 

Hah. Yeah. Jensen writes about people, not pretty buildings and history and creative clichés. But maybe he'll meet some real people and he can transplant them to Dallas, or West Texas, and make something of that. Maybe.

It all depends, really, on decisions made by others. And he's still not sure about that. His first experience of being dicked around by the audience left him confused, almost angry, like he didn't understand the concept of the damn show any more. And that was the one time Jensen had some input into the choices that will be made for him, some momentary control. What else could they spring on him, that he never thought of? Does he have a shiny new career as… uh, an assassin? A tripe butcher? What?

A part of what happens next is about to be decided, which is why Aldis is filming right over Jensen's shoulder as he tries to sip calmly at his double espresso. At least the coffee's good. Danni was right about that part. That helps.

"Hey, Jensen," says a voice, and a pretty woman is standing in front of him. "I'm Ilaria." 

He stands up to shake hands, and a waiter brings her a cappuccino. It's like speed dating, without the expectation of sex at any point in the transaction. Ilaria seems nice, but kind of conventional. Then there's Arigho, who is kind of dickish and wears a thick neck-chain which Jensen silently hates. He hopes his gaze isn't too obviously repelled. Then Signora Petroni, who is awesomely fun and aged somewhere north of eighty, Jensen thinks. He could get on with that, maybe, though she says mostly that he needs to eat more and find a nice boy to settle down with, which is such an Italian mamma cliché it makes him laugh outright. But hell, he'd like the nice boy, and good food isn't a hardship. So, maybe. 

"Jensen?" This voice is American. The owner is youngish, male. Very tall. Lots of brown hair. "I'm Jared."

He smiles, and Jensen hopes again that his gaze isn't too obviously betraying his thoughts. Which are mostly, Yes. He'll do, he will suit very nicely please thank you. Maybe not for this mentoring gig, but if Jared's hanging around in Venice, Jensen wants to know about it. They talk long enough that Aldis gives Jensen a hurry-up cough a couple times. And they exchange numbers. So, it's not all bad, being in Venice, is Jensen’s immediate thought. Jared's a great guy. Texas born and bred, but followed his half-Italian best friend to Venice after college, and somehow never left. He's a sculptor ("But also I tour guide some, one to ones for people who want a personal intro. And also, you know, tend bar. Because sculpture is the most expensive art medium I could possibly have chosen, and nobody buys my shit."). Jensen hopes his heart isn't throbbing in his eyeballs as hard as he feels it may be.

Jensen heads back to the hotel, his home until the audience dictates his next choice. It's not far from the Piazza, which means everything is busy, full of tourists, mask shops, guys touting postcards, litter and congestion. Romance, it ain't. Then he has to wait, for hours. They Skype in Danni first, and record her decision. She sounds doubtful about pairing Jensen with another American (which, Jensen is sure, means she knows he is attracted to Jared and doesn't think that's a good plan on camera). She also frets at Signora Petroni, worrying Jensen wanted to get away from having family make his decisions, and whether he'd find it too like when family used to try to interfere in his love life (long ago). Then, thank god, she snickers, and abruptly knocks out Arigho, because of the jewellery, which is why Jensen loves his best friend more than anyone else. 

He has to wait while a new studio audience is played snippets of his three alternative mentor meetings, then votes for his new-life mentor. They do this part live-ish, so that his reaction shot is captured for broadcast. Which is probably a shame, because Jensen is damn sure his face does a thing when they pick Jared for him. Damn sure. He realises minutes later that he's maybe still grinning.

Jared gives him a huge hug, and a high five, and then another hug. "Dude," he says, "Come and meet Gen. We are going to make your life here _awesome_."

Gen's very pretty. Jared keeps a hand on her shoulder the whole time. Jensen tries not to hate her.

"Very cool," says Aldis. "I think you and Jared are gonna come over good on camera. Enjoy this part." Jensen has to find a place to live, soon, and he has a few weeks' acclimatising while that works out. The producers left plenty of slack in the schedule for this, not being overly dumb about how long it will take to find accommodation for fifteen people on the basis of the choices of random strangers. Jensen, not incidentally, gets some intensive language training at this point, so he's going to come out ahead on the deal even if he doesn't click with the viewers and gets a short broadcast stint only. Jensen's almost looking forward to this part, now. Okay, Jared may not turn out to be the guy of his dreams, parachuted into his life on a whim, but he's still a potential friend. Living in Venice, writing, learning Italian, hanging out with a good guy and a nice woman… yeah, he can do this. 

Jensen says to camera, "I'm still not sure I want to make a life in Venice, for the long term. But it's exciting, I guess. Really exciting. I just have to get down to understanding this place a little better, and find out where you guys want me to live."

*

**Third Choice: Wherever I Lay My Hat**

Jared isn't straight. That's really Jensen's main takeaway from the first week they spend together. That, and the not making assumptions about guys who have their arm around girls all the time. Jared has his arm around someone at all times, Jensen now realises, and sometimes it's Gen, but by no means always. Sometimes it's Jensen, in fact, already, because Jared has no sense of personal space and boundaries, and Jensen is completely okay with that. He's a little shorter than Jared, and there's something about the way Jared reaches out and hugs him in, sometimes rubbing an affectionate cheek on the side of Jensen's head, that just speaks to Jensen in good ways. Jared does this to everyone, too, making a big pantomime of it sometimes for Gen, who is truly a foot shorter than him, if not more. It doesn’t actively mean anything. It’s just nice. Which Jensen has no intention of complaining about.

Jared, as well as being a cuddle monster, is also a talker. And although his fee for the show includes payment of only about three hours per week of activities with Jensen, plus the episode filming, he instantly adopts Jensen into his circle. So, by the time the cameras are on and Danni is being Skyped again for the ritual next choice, Jensen's come to care a whole lot less about how long he can manage to stay on this show, and a whole lot more about whether Venice, and maybe even _Jared_ are a possibility for his future. 

He's heard the whole history of Jared and Gen, of Jared's remote, conservative family, who near disowned him when he came out. Of Gen's family, Catholic as hell and absolutely not interested in letting that make their loved ones miserable. Of Jared's virtual adoption through high school. Of Gen moving back here to care for her dying Nonna a little after college, and Jared following. ("I missed her too much. Never meant to stay, but- How is this place not an inspiration? And I lucked into a studio space, too, so now I have all my gear here. Do you know how much that costs to transport back to Texas?" Jensen does not, but he has seen Jared's studio now. That much metal, and marble, and tools, belts, lathes- Yeah.) He does think, pretty reasonably, that Jared could probably replace most of it in America. But Jared's picky about his tools, he learns early. How weird, though, to find yourself in this magical place by chance, because of friendship and having a really (literally) heavy profession. He wonders whether Jared wants out, sometimes. Maybe it's something he'll explore, if he stays.

Jensen has the tourist thing down, puts in a couple half days with Aldis, walking around canals and getting filmed. But the best parts are always things that Gen and Jared seek out for him. Jared wrinkles his nose up at Jensen's hotel. "I dunno, San Marco… it's kind of a pit. All the cafes are stupid expensive, and the barmen take insane tips." Jared is a barman just off the Piazza. He knows. Jensen watched him one night, making enough to pay a month's rent, or a week's cost for his studio materials plus rental. He can't imagine living like that, but he's apparently going to find out, if he can stick around on the show. The first thing the real live public will vote on is his Venice job opportunities. 

Jensen's pretty relaxed about both home and work, because turns out his New-life mentor gets to shake out the weekly opportunities for him, and he's pretty sure he trusts Jared not to go insane. There are pressures from the production company, sure, but within limits. Most of the limits being what Jared is prepared to suggest. 

Which, when it comes to property, are nice, but also somewhat insane. "I can't afford that!" Jensen hollers, when Jared offers the audience the chance to get Jensen a Grand Canal palazzo apartment. It's very seriously outside Jensen's price range, whatever job he gets in Venice (unless it's bank robbery, but he thinks that would be a tough gig in a city without cars). It’s living the Venetian tourist dream, sure, but he’d be on the streets in a month. The second is a good place, though, workable, and in a fun area. Jared walked Jensen round a bunch of northern Cannareggio, where "real people" allegedly live, and it's quiet, and the canals feel like they're just a part of the cityscape instead of a mindboggling maze designed to foil tourist exploration. Jensen tries to project positive at that, like he's begging the audience to think seriously about it. 

The third one is a surprise. "I, uh, my roommate moved out five months back," says Jared. Jensen knows this. Gen has a boyfriend, kind of a hot mess but a nice guy on his day, and they're sort of living together in an unsatisfactory way that has Gen crashing on Jared's couch every few days because Gianni needs the apartment for Football With The Guys. (Watching, not playing. Gianni's not actually stupid, just a selfish unappreciative fucker.) Those nights, Jared just sighs and adds extra pasta to the boiling pot. But apparently Jared is missing Gen on the nights she's not around. "I kind of hate being alone, so I was looking for a new roomie, and, uh, if you guys want, that could be Jensen." He looks at Jensen like it's personal, like he likes Jensen. Which Jensen sort of knows, because Jared is transparent like glass, and also because he's said so, many times, in the short time Jensen has known him. There's a pause, and then he adds, "Also, my neighbourhood is great. Campo Santa Margherita, real family place. Lots of artists. You should come live there. Good for creatives."

Jensen holds back the urge to leap into Jared's arms and shout YESSSS. Because, really, does he want to do this on television? Maybe not. Although, he's liked what he has seen of that part of town. And, yeah, living with Jared could be fun. Really fun. Really not-for-TV fun. 

He crosses his fingers, hoping the camera doesn’t catch the movement. Danni says, “I vote Jared. Jensen’s been living alone too long.” But she doesn’t have the power. All she can do is knock out the stupid, beautiful, too-costly palazzo apartment, saying, “I’d like to see my best friend again sometime in this life, you know? That rent is more than he makes a year. Sorry, Jen. No high life for you.”

He says, “That’s cool, I’m okay with that. And the other choices are great. Thanks D.” He blows her a kiss, she winks back, and suddenly, he feels very far away from her. “I miss you,” he adds. “Miss you a lot.”

“I know, babe,” says Danni. “But you got a good guy taking care of you while I can’t.”

Jared’s hand lands on Jensen’s shoulder, massaging warmly. “You’re gonna have fun, either way,” he says. “Guaranteed.”

When it’s Jensen’s turn with the studio audience, the last time he’ll know in real time what the choice is, before the broadcasts start and it all goes public, he’s feeling pretty good.

They vote for him to share with Jared. There’s hugging. Lots and lots. Jensen inhales Jared’s smell. “Hey, roomie,” he mutters, somewhere into the back of Jared’s ear. “It’s gonna be fun.”

*

**Fourth Choice: Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man…**

_Fifteen Choices_ premiers on a Sunday night, and Jensen stays up to watch the studio stream. It looks pretty good, he thinks. He kind of wants to beat his screen self over the head for acting like a dork the whole time, but the feedback he gets is good. It’s kind of a publicity blitz for this week, nightly episodes introducing all the contestants, their mentors, their living arrangements. He tries to keep tabs on what’s happening, but he’s so far away by time zone it’s not conducive to having a daytime life in actual Venice. So he’s not sure which contestants are going over big, likely to stay for a few long weeks, with people voting in the millions. He could be out at once, after Sunday’s live show. 

He’s trying to make the most of his Venetian life, meantime. Five weeks so far, and moving in with Jared didn’t take any of the lengthy trouble that some contenders have had with landlords and furnishings. He just moved right in, after the live show.

Aldis left them to it for a couple weeks there, once he had enough of the moving-in vibe captured on film. On the live show it’ll look like Jensen’s been there only a few days. It feels like months. He wouldn’t have expected sharing to be so _easy_. It’s been a long time since he had to share a space, and he’s old and cantankerous, at least in his own mind. But Jared seems to make everything simple. Even his obnoxious early rising for a run through the dawn city has turned into early rising and returning with good coffee and pastries most days. Jensen’s dealing okay with that. The bar Jared tends is obnoxious too, overpriced and over-touristy, but he has a bunch of friends who usually have a table, and Jensen’s taken to spending evening time there. Practising his Italian, sometimes, which- he would have never expected to be speaking Italian, in Italy, for fun, but he’s getting there. The Saturday evening, he catches himself ordering a bunch of Spritz for the table, laughing at Donnatella’s crack about a bunch of crazy tourists drinking cappuccino at 8pm, and he’s a part of this. 

A month of Italian lessons - with Signora Petroni no less, because apparently their chemistry really worked on film (thanks Aldis) – has worked wonders. Plus a bunch of editing jobs are still coming Jensen’s way, from clients who keep asking for inside information about the programme-making – apparently, it’s not doing his actual business any harm to be TV famous for fifteen minutes. It’s all good. 

Okay, it’s mostly all good. There are just a couple things in the way. One is that Jensen’s _thing_ for Jared shows zero sign of shutting up and fucking off like he hoped, but there’s nothing coming his way from Jared that’s even a little bit encouraging. Jared has a couple of half-ex-boyfriends, nothing serious, somewhere above a booty-call, below friends with benefits, who hang around the group sometimes. Federico came back to the apartment one time, and stayed over, but possibly on the couch, and Jensen’s sort of hopelessly confused about how badly he wants that to be all that it was. Even though, clearly, doing the relationship thing with Jared on camera would be sort of tacky and awful, and people would think it’s just for the show, and- 

In short, Jensen is confused. And there’s another thing bugging him too.

Aldis asked him yesterday to sum up the whole Venetian experience so far, his hopes and dreams and whatever. “You got thirty seconds. A minute if you’re faaaascinating,” he said, drawling it out, quirking his mouth. Jensen appreciates Aldis quite a lot sometimes. He’s quietly but definitely pissed about even being a part of _Fifteen Choices_ , but at least he’s funny. 

Anyway. Jensen said, “I’ve seen so many amazing things. I feel like I’m really starting to know this place, but there’s so much more to discover.” Aldis yawned behind the camera, and kept it rolling. “But- I don’t know. I can’t write here. Or, I haven’t yet. And that’s who I am. I don’t know, man. I feel like I’m just playacting. This isn’t real life.”

That’s the part they use on the live show. Of course it is. 

Jared looks heartbroken. “Jen, I thought we were good?” They came out to the bar for this, quiet at one in the morning on a Sunday (well, Monday), but still a fun space to watch the programme. They have Danni Skyped in to watch the whole thing, propped up on a tablet like she’s sitting round the bar table with them. It’s been a pretty cool way to spend the evening. She and Jared have been getting on good, Jensen enjoying having them both around. And now Jared found out Jensen’s not having the perfect dream life, exactly, and, oh. Make it better. Undo it.

Jensen wants to wrap his arms around Jared, hold him close, or at least close enough to not be able to see the wibbly puppy thing he’s got going around the eyes. “We are, man. We are. But- I guess not being able to write just got me down for a little. I don’t do loafing around too well.”

Which, obviously, is the theme for the next show, and Aldis laughs, “You guys should talk about that. Like, now. It’ll give me more material.” 

Jared gets this grin, an evil thing, that has Jensen looking askance. “Man, what did you find for me to do?” At least it’s better than puppy-hurt, he guesses.

Jared just says, “Watch and find out.” Jensen’s pretty sure Aldis captures his expression then. Somewhere between fear and resignation. Who the hell thought Jared would be a responsible mentor for Jensen’s life? Just because he kind of gets the creative thing, doesn’t mean he can’t be a mischievous troublemaking dickhead sometimes. 

It’s weird, waiting for the choices to come up. Astrella in the studio, running through all fifteen contestants, and Jensen’s sort of concerned people will be too bored to vote or anything because that’s a _lot_ of characters for the audience to care about. But when it’s his turn, he’s still excited. Trepidatious, but excited. 

Jared’s laughing when the first one comes up. Fucking _tour guide_? Uh, no thank you. Jared’s voiceover says, “Jensen’s really taken to the Venetian way of life. I think he’d be a great guide for people who want a little of the city, but through American eyes.”

Jensen gives him the finger, in a hopefully not-on-camera way. “Oh man, no,” he says, “I love this place, but all I can do is the obvious stuff. I don’t know this place like you.” And I despise the shitty guides exploiting the idiot tourists, which you and Danni both know, so this is the disposable option. What the hell are the things Jared’s driving him toward?

“My guy Franco can get you in on the boats,” says Jared onscreen next, grinning way too wide. “The garbage boats, that is.” 

Jensen doesn’t swear, because his reactions are being broadcast. But oh, god, no. He’s been kind of fascinated with the way Venetian life works, with boats taking the place of cars. How ancient houses are gutted with rubble poured right out into a canal boat, instead of a skip or a truck bed. It’s kind of amazing, still. He even said to Jared something dumb about how the garbage collection here is sort of picturesque. Should have known someone as connected as Jared would know a guy, even for something as unionised as garbage. 

He really doesn’t want to spend the next three months on a garbage boat, though. Even if it’s important work. Even if it gets him amazing creative material for his breakthrough novel. All other considerations aside, he fucking hates getting up early. “You couldn’t find me a bookshop, huh?” he says to Jared. Well, says, hisses, something like that. Jared holds his hands up, laughing way too much. “You work sitting on your ass way too much, Ackles. Time to get up and moving.”

Which… shit. Jensen turns back to watching the show. Whatever the hell the last option is, he already has a good sense it’s not going to be one of his dream jobs. Fucking Jared. He looks over at Danni, who is laughing way too hard. “Ah, fuck you both,” he says, safely, while the last little clip of his potential new career is playing. Danni sticks out her tongue. Then tries to high-five Jared through the screen. Jensen hates them both.

“Jensen loves coffee,” says Jared’s recorded voice. “I sometimes think it’s the thing he loves best about Italy. But he doesn’t appreciate the true art that goes into a perfect espresso. So my third option, to show Jensen just how his favourite beverage is created, is for him to be a barista. There’s a bar just around the corner from my workplace, right in the heart of the city, and they have an opening for a trainee. It’ll be fun!” He grins an evil, evil grin. ‘The heart of the city’ Jensen’s ass. Tourist central, more like.

Astrella says, “Danneel? You got some advice for our voting public here? What would be Jensen’s best opportunity? And what are you knocking out, right now?”

Danni pretends to ponder. “Weeellll, I think Jensen’s a prince who would hate getting dirty. But, you know, it’s good honest work, garbage-collecting. And it would be a totally new experience, right? That’s what y’all want for him?” Jensen is going to kill his friend. When he tracks her down, even if she skips town and changes her name, he is absolutely hunting her like a dog. “Also, he totally hates fake tour guides, the ones that just copy out of Lonely Planet the night before, and that’s really all he could do. So I guess, that one’s my No.”

Astrella says, looking a little surprised, “Okay… So our home audience should dial in now to pick Jensen’s new career: barista, or garbage collector. Get voting, people.”

There are three more contestants still to show, but Jensen just switches off the feed, and sinks his head to the table. “Shit, shit, shit, SHIT.”

Jared pats his shoulder. “Hey, it’ll be okay. Not like you’ll be full time working, whichever they pick. Have to have time for filming and shit. You’ll have time to write. You know, if you- Uh. Sorry. I didn’t know you were blocked, man. Thought something practical would be good for you, get active-“ He pauses, hand warm between Jensen’s shoulder blades. “So, how much do you hate me?”

Jensen speaks to the table, and not in any way to this guy he kind of likes and definitely wants and is his best friend in this hemisphere of the world, “Depends on if they vote me onto a fucking garbage boat, asshole.”

*

**Fifth Choice: A Night on the Town**

So, the good news is the American voting public decide that a garbage collector, even one working on cute little boats, is not what they want on prime time TV. Jensen gets to be a barista instead. In a city-centre café on the main tourist drag. He’s totally fucking thrilled, thank you for asking. Totally. 

The other good news, sort of, depending on how long Jensen wants to be tortured by Jared’s sense of whimsy, is that he’s one of the more popular characters on the show. Not right up there with Adele, who’s left behind a life as an exotic dancer and is working in a retirement home now, singing along with old guys who can’t believe their luck. But way above Axel, who is just as obnoxious as Jensen thought, and also kind of dull to watch. Looks like Jensen’s good to be among the last ten or so contestants, unless some of the also-rans make a big break for popularity.

Which, okay, he’s happy about. Spending time in Venice doesn’t get more difficult. It’s May, now, and Jared is initiating Jensen into the rituals of different produce coming up at Rialto market, in their time. Jensen’s learned how to make asparagus risotto good enough that Gen asked for second helpings even though Gianni’s gone to the mainland for a while after another epic fight and she looks pretty crushed most days. Jared has promised crab linguine next, which will be epic, Jensen has a feeling. And there are inklings of courgette flowers, bell peppers, new season meat and good fish, and it all still feels like an adventure even though Jensen now totally thinks ordering Prosecco is a normal way to start an evening out. Going back to beer is going to be sort of depressing, when he leaves. 

He’s still pretty sure he will leave, though. Jensen’s little room in back of Jared’s apartment has been home for six weeks. Six good weeks, overall, if you overlook him coming in late one night off a bad shift and dumping a washing-up bowl full of cold water over Jared’s sleeping form because _I hate you and your shitty career ideas, you fucker_. And even that, once Jared stopped swearing and made Jensen sleep on the couch so he could steal Jensen’s not-soaked bed, was kind of fun. But it’s like a play home. His bed isn’t even a full double, not that there’s room for one. Which probably bothered Gen less. Jared’s apartment is on the top floor, and Jensen’s ceiling slopes down over the bed so hard he has nearly brained himself too often. And sometimes, already, the apartment is getting stifling hot in the evenings. There is no air con. Nobody has it, apparently. Nobody can afford the electricity bills, and even if you can, you have to find a fitter, and nobody in Venice has a real job, so electrical and plumbing jobs mostly just wait forever. It’s a fantasy of a city, not a real one. 

Also, the tourists. Call Jensen ungrateful, by all means, because the tourists tip him almost as good as Jared, and he could almost have afforded that stupidly expensive place on the Grand Canal if he had really kissed up to patrons. But, ugh, he hates them. Well, some of them. Mostly the groups. “Can you serve us all in the next three minutes?” says a guide bringing forty people into the café with no warning, pushing out regulars and frail older people who were making for favoured tables, and ignoring that there are two Lavazza machines and Jensen is not an actual time-traveller, so, no, that is not possible. And the cheapskate day trippers, protesting the expense of a four dollar coffee in one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the world, when they take an hour over one drink, upload photos on the free wifi, and every last one of them takes a leisurely piss in the café’s two overworked bathrooms. Which are also a part of the staff's work, so, you know, fuck you and your ninety-cent tip, sir.

Jensen likes some of it. The locals, who come in and order at the bar, knock back a double espresso with three sugars and a grappa shot at 8am, and somehow look healthy on it. The quieter tourists, in ones and twos, with noses in books and eyes full of Venetian dreams. The ones who ask what the food specials are and take one of the two or three lunchtime sandwiches and cold snacks that Valeria’s daughter makes daily in her kitchen upstairs (all so good they make Jensen drool, honestly), and don’t bitch because there’s no pizza or full kitchen in this hole in the wall. Jared, who turns out to be one of the regulars before his regular bar shifts start at 2pm. And the coffee. Jensen can get a good crema on his shots four times out of five by the sixth day. Polina's pretty pleased with his progress. Maybe after all this is over, he'll buy a real espresso maker and that'll be the main takeaway from this crazy time. At least knowing how to wait tables in a hot rush will never be wasted.

So, it’s mostly the tourists Jensen hates. Or tourists and bathroom cleaning and 6am starts. But he’s come to appreciate those a little, though he will never admit it to Jared. Walking across the Accademia bridge in the quiet hour after dawn, before anyone who speaks no Italian is stirring, he has started to like even this congested area of the city. It’s partly Gen, who turned him on to understanding the geography of the place, the squares with their churches and water fountains, the alleys that were once canals. The different feel and taste in the air of the six districts of the city. But it’s even more that Jensen gets time to think, in the mornings. To think and, maybe, to create something.

He’s not seeing as much of Jared as he would like. Their shifts haven’t been super-compatible, even though neither is working full time as bar staff. So he’s taken to sneaking into Jared’s studio at times when Jared’s working, taking advantage of a standing invitation to company. Jared's not a peaceful sculptor, prone to long periods of standing still followed by violent bursts of swearing, use of power tools, and invitations to Jensen to get his ass over and do something helpful instead of standing about like a useless dick. Jensen sort of loves it.

He isn't quite writing. Not quite. But there's something stirring. Some kind of project, the germ of something transformational, about a man who can transmute matter into art, or life, or something. Could be a historical, though Jensen's not the guy to write a bio of Michelangelo, and he's never been interested in historical tourist literature before. Could be contemporary, but modern materials don't grip him the way marbles and bronzes do in the museums. Jared talks sometimes about the lost bronzes, of classical antiquity and much more recent centuries, melted down into engines of war. Transmuted, again. 

Maybe that's a thing. Maybe Jensen should just write a thriller with a sculpture theme; he has a couple under his belt, and that publisher offered him a contract extension, which he blew out in favour of trying to write something important and meaningful. Which – Jared has cheerfully informed him – was a dumb thing to do, because important just happens, mostly not when you're straining for it. 

Jared has taken Jensen to see his one important piece (in his own mind, anyway – Jensen pretty much likes Jared's style, and can't really see the distinctions). It's in a primary school over in Castello, modestly metallic, already rubbed by class after class of kids getting into it, clambering over it. Jensen asked why this one mattered; Jared said, "Because they love it. They made it important." 

Jensen did not kiss him. But, god, if wanting made it so. 

Aldis wasn't there, then. Filming isn't onerous, right now – too many contestants for the two hour live show to give them each much onscreen space, not like the weeklong introductory shows. Aldis is giving Jensen some space instead. He films at the café, sure, and a little in Jared's apartment, reminding the viewers their gimmick is living together, in a location that Aldis makes clear is comically small for two largeish American dudes. He occasionally shoots Gen, too, but the wider circle of friends Jensen's making is getting no TV time whatsoever. The viewers get nothing but a sense of Jensen's home and work.

Which is probably why this week's episode choice is more of a social thing. The producers warned them that the big choices would be early on: location, mentor, home, working life. After that, it's more light-hearted stuff for a while, though there will definitely be dating setups at some point in the future. Jensen's sort of dreading that episode. Or episodes. He wonders whether the producers are seriously expecting romance from them. It wasn't sold like a dating show, still isn't from what Jensen can tell, but the nature of the setup means the contestants are all single. So, maybe that's the endgame. Will you marry your randomly assigned gameshow boyfriend on national television? He has an answer to that one, though not something that’ll get broadcast.

"Hey," he says, suddenly, one lazy afternoon in the studio where Jared's communing gently with some metal… stuff. Cogs, and- No, Jensen has no idea what that's going to become. Jared morphs shapes anyway, so it's a fair assumption that this thing won't look like half a lawnmower being eaten by a garbage disposal when he's done. Jared doesn't look up, but he doesn't throw anything at Jensen's head, so it's probably an okay time to interrupt the Creative Genius. "So, do you _know_ what all the choices will be? Because you must have to prepare them-"

Jared throws down a… wrench, possibly? He stretches long and loudly, back popping. "Jensen Ackles, I'm gonna nominate you for slowest human brain in existence," he says, and ducks Jensen's retaliation with no difficulty. "Sucker. Yes, I know some of them way ahead, because prep time and whatever. They told us we'd have to find you a job and a place to stay if we got picked. And they also asked for some ideas of how we'd fill the later programmes, so I know some of the basic headings. But not what order or anything like that. Also, I'm totally not supposed to give you clues before the show now we're past the setup. So, my lips are sealed."

"Your lips are never sealed," Jensen points out. "So, they're gonna make me date someone, yeah? Is it gonna be awful?"

"Would I do that to you?" Jared bats his eyelashes, like garbage boatman wasn't nearly the fate he set Jensen. "Dating, some activities, that sort of deal. Oh, and they asked about how long it took to get a marriage licence, and I had to break it to them you're not gonna be able to get married here, so I guess that's the big finale if you made it that far."

"Assume I won't, then," says Jensen. "Oh, great." Is it good news he can see into the producers’ minds? Not so much when he sees crap like that.

"Yeah, I guess." Jared tidies some metal shavings, absently. "I mean, they seemed sort of well-meaning about the gay thing, but it keeps tripping them up, I think. That dick Arigho didn't even know you were gay, you know? And he's still talking about how he nearly got suckered into looking out for a queer dude, so, big escape there."

"Fuck, yeah. I knew a guy with that necklace had to be bad news." Jensen sneezes. This happens a lot in the workshop, so he ignores it, and says, a little stuffed up but sincere, "I got really lucky that they picked me for you, you know? Appreciate it." He pats Jared on the shoulder, less demonstrative than Jared often is with random strangers, but meaningful for Jensen.

"I know," Jared smiles back. "You're totally lucky to have me, babe."

On the live show that week, the big life choice (hah) turns out to be nothing more than getting dinner with potential new friends. Jared has suggested a blowout at Harry's Bar, a lazy weekend lunch out at Torcello in the lagoon, or a pizzeria on the mainland, "Because Jensen's forgetting what the rest of the world is like, and I'd like him to remember."

It's mostly supposed to be about the new-life mentors helping the contestants to make some new friends. A lot of them have only made their moves in the last two-three weeks, and are still getting settled. Jensen really doesn't feel that way. He walked into Jared's life, and it fits so damn snugly. Maybe adding Polina, Signora Petroni, maybe dating someone if he lasts into that round, but he doesn't _need_ more. Jared, Gen and their wider circle of friends, that's good.

He says, honestly, when Aldis asks him for his response, "Any of those sound great, man. I'm having a ball. And the food here? Is amazing."

It's a softball answer, but really there are no bad options. Danni knocks out the mainland, which is kind of nice. Jensen can stay in his island bubble a while longer. Jensen's looking forward, almost for the first time, to whatever the audience picks. 

*

**Sixth Choice: Because You Have So Much Free Time**

Saturday on Torcello is busy, but still so unlike the main city Jensen's kind of blindsided. 

"I know, right?" Jared has had this happy grin ever since they got onto the big ferry boat. "You forget, sometimes, there's all this out here."

It's not quite true. Jensen has been over to Lido for some sunshine a couple times. But, yeah, he hasn't really visited the rest of the lagoon. And Jared was right, he hasn't been to the mainland at all. How weird is that? It's pretty weird, honestly. Jensen's been in his Venice bubble, and this isn't doing a lot to pop it. 

"We should come out here one afternoon when we're not working," Jared says. "I mean, Burano, there are nice parts too, good places to eat, just feel the different vibe. And other islands too, if you want. Venice isn't just Venice, you know?"

There is a long line of tourists making their way from the ferry stop to the cathedral and the museums. Jensen will get there. Later. Right now, he's lying on the scrubby grass, listening to Gianni and Gen bickering over some kind of soccer pickup game, and feeling the salt air on his skin. It's not that sunny, lagoon haze all over, but it's free, and spacious, and Jensen didn't realise how bad he'd needed this.

"Not just a city boy, huh?" Jared says, standing right over Jensen so that he has to squint up against the sky, and also, jeez, try not to look straight up Jared's shorts leg. 

"Seems not," Jensen says, easily. Aldis is filming, but that's okay. This was a good week. This is a good day. "Didn't realise how bad I missed it," he says. "I don't think I could live here forever, Jay."

Jared sits down next to him, unhurried, flicking at his t-shirt when it hitches up to flash his abs briefly. "Yeah. That's what I thought when I came here."

"But you stayed." 

"Didn't mean to," Jared says. "Just- Family, you know?" He looks over at Gen and Gianni, at their bickering which is one part total love and one part shitshow-in-preparation, as always. 

"Yeah." Jensen struggles up onto his elbows. "I thought I'd be more homesick. My folks are great, lots of good friends. But I guess I don't feel like I'm settled here, so it's like a triple-strength vacation."

"I'm not doing my job right," Jared says, sadly. "Supposed to be giving you a whole new life here."

"Yeah," Jensen returns. "Maybe you are. Maybe not actually here, but the whole way you've welcomed me here- It's, it's made all the difference, Jay." 

Jared lays down at Jensen's side, arms up above his head, in a messy sprawl, animal contentment in the heat. "Anytime, babe. You know that."

They lie, for a while, listening to the friends around them. Then Gen kicks a soccer ball exactly onto Jared's belly, and there's retribution, and Jensen ends up arriving for their fancy restaurant lunch with a smear of dirt on his cheek, pink and breathless with the almost-forgotten fun of a dumb game with friends. Yeah, he needed this.

Sometime around the third course, bellies are full and the end is nowhere in sight. Jensen's learned just to go with this stuff, on the rare occasions when someone runs through the whole antipasto-primo-secondo-formaggio-dolci-caffe shebang. It's amazing, till you burst.

But roundabout that point on this occasion, Jared says, "I'm supposed to be finding you a hobby."

At which, Jensen actually groans. "Seriously?" He's working four days per week at the café, still taking a couple days editorial work and at some point he's allegedly writing. Plus, you know, TV appearance stuff. He’s living maybe 75% of the life he used to live, and 50% of a life that is kind of new, in parts, and 25% of a stupid fake TV life which isn’t the part that matters about changing his world and trying a new life, and it just doesn’t all fit. 

Jensen didn’t actually notice that he closed his eyes, but he notices when he opens them. Jared’s staring at him, sweetly worried the way Jared does so well, like Jensen matters at all outside of the programme and the faked-up things that brought them together. Which, because Jared’s a good guy, Jensen has little doubt is somewhat true, but not like he wanted it to be when they first met. There’s never been any reciprocation. 

It’s not fair that it hits him today, which is such a good day, and in the middle of this feast that Jared arranged, and whatever, but, anyway. Jensen’s kind of done.

Jared says, “You know, you’re way too tough on yourself, Jen. You’re trying to live two lives.” It’s like he’s a mind reader. Except then he goes on to a conclusion Jensen hasn’t dared. “Why not let the old one go, for a while?”

Jensen tests the idea. Stop trying to keep up his old work contacts. It’s not like they don’t know what he’s doing. He’s good at editorial work, and freelancing should give you the choice, sometimes, to drop off grid and then come back. At least, that was why he took it on in the first place: so he could write, when he needed to write. But lately, that hasn’t been a thing. Just- 

Jared adds, “Be here. Be a waiter who wants to write the next great novel, and is learning a new language the best way of all, by living it. Who has a cheap apartment share and a bunch of buddies, and a weird little broadcast career in another country that doesn’t matter all that. See where it gets you. It could all be over this week, or next week. You know that.”

Jensen does know it, but he’s been ignoring the knowledge studiedly for the last month. He gets to decide what happens with his life, not a bunch of people on TV. Except for how that’s not what he signed up for. But maybe if he lives it, he’ll give it a real chance. 

“You know what?” he says, and it’s sort of appropriate that the wait staff have just filled glasses for about the fifth time. He raises a brimming dark-red glass, and toasts Jared. “You, my friend, are a very wise man.”

Jared toasts him back, and there’s laughter when a couple of the guys catch what they’re saying and allege, loudly, that that isn’t the Jared they know, and what is Jensen even thinking trusting himself to Jared’s mentoring, which they’ve never really said before but clearly is the group view of Jensen’s little TV career. Like it’s not the important part of why they hang out with Jensen, even with Aldis and his occasional assistant working hard today to capture picturesque, quirky, whatever moments for the folks back home. 

It’s over their second coffees, which possibly aren’t as good as Jensen makes on his best day, but are coretto-ed with enough neat spirit to top off the meal like a sandbag, that Jared leans his chin into Jensen’s shoulder. He’s breathing warm and damp into Jensen’s ear, grappa fumes wafting between them both. “Jen? Whatever they give you for a hobby, make it funny. Okay?”

“Hmmm?” Jensen’s halfway asleep, and turning his head puts their faces weirdly close together. A nice feeling, but not a wise one. 

“I don’t want this to be over,” Jared breathes, slurring it all together. “You- I want you to go all the way to the final, babe. Want you to stay.”

Which, there are ways of taking that message, right? It’s not just Jensen hearing there are vibes there which don’t entirely sit with just someone having fun on a TV gig. It’s really not. 

He analyses it obsessively the whole way back on the leisurely ferry, full of over-fed friends cutting way down on the chatter and laughter compared with the trip out. Jared wants Jensen to stay. And Jensen to give up on keeping a foot back in the States, in his old life, at least for the duration. And, just maybe, Jared’s worried Jensen isn’t going to make it on the show for long. It’s true, he’s getting mediocre votes, never much into the top half of public interest. There’s apparently some twitter love for him, mostly his bowlegs and freckles, or at least so Danni reports, but it’s not some wave of popular interest in Jensen Ackles: reality star. 

He makes some resolutions, the way you can only truly do when you’re owlish with booze and good living, and don’t have to actively do anything about them tonight. He’s gonna go for it. The full package. And he’s gonna try to be the best damn reality whatever, ever. He’s gonna take whatever Jared throws at him, hobby-wise, and he’s going to make it fun, and dumb, and pretty, and- Yeah. Jensen knows where he’s headed now. 

*

“You dick,” he says, firmly, to Jared, at ass o’clock the next night, as Astrella is pumping up the viewers to get excited about the three potential leisure activities Jared has so kindly picked out for him. Nothing, you know, strenuous, because, said Jared on national television, Jensen would get his ass whupped by Jared at any sport you care to name, and his ego can’t take that. Which is so untrue, and Jensen’s mock anger wasn’t totally feigned for comedy purposes, but whatever. What Jared’s offering the viewers is a chance to send Jensen to choir, to a quilting circle, or (and honestly, this could be cool), to morning beach yoga on the Lido. 

Danni looks judiciously into her camera shot, and says, “Oh, I don’t think Jensen is the yoga type. He has a lovely singing voice, though.” 

Fuck her, he thinks, but manages not to say. He can do beach yoga if he wants, now he knows it’s an option. Maybe he will, in this spare time he’s going to have if he stops the editorial work. Which, even in the cold light of a new and sober day, still seems like a plan. It’s just for a few weeks, and he can just about afford it, thanks to the apartment share. So. Yeah. 

With the heavy hint about singing voice, he’s looking forward to the great American public assigning him a place in some choral group. Which, he hates doing group singing, but he can fake it. He sounds pretty cheerful, signing off. 

*

**Seventh Choice: New Life, New You**

The Great American Public can suck Jensen’s dick, he thinks, as he stabs himself yet _again_ with the stupid non-sharp end of the needle that is still pretty sharp if you’re trying to shove it through a bunch of fabric, and-

“Not like that, dear,” says Viola, one of the queens of the quilting bee. She’s smiling, but in that way that says Jensen better shape up or he’s out on his ass. Viola is aged eighty something, has arthritis, and weighs maybe seventy pounds soaking wet, but Jensen still gets a shiver when she looks at him that way.

“Sorry ma’am,” he says, ducking his head. “I’m trying-“

“But you’re not listening, are you dear?” Viola was a nanny. A very high-end British nanny of some kind that Jensen’s never heard of. But she came out to Venice in 1950-something and has never gone home. That takes a certain spine, Jensen is finding. Although she’s not the actual boss of the quilting circle, because these ladies wouldn’t be so gauche. And also because declaring a boss might put Signora Dottoressa Magari out of joint, or Signora Morodin, who is apparently secretly some kind of Venice royalty but doesn’t like to talk about it (Jensen’s ass she doesn’t, but yeah, there it is). “Do try to keep things small and even, and you’ll find life much easier.”

To be 100% fair to the good ladies of the San Polo quilting circle, they haven’t mocked Jensen too hard since Monday night when Aldis told him that the public voted him into this hellhole. Second highest votes of all the surviving contestants, too, which says Jared was right about Jensen needing to be funny. He hopes incompetent is funny. He has that part taped. And the ladies have been very encouraging, despite Jensen’s swearing and the occasional blood spots. After assessing his lack of competency, they’ve steered him firmly away from their glorious joint creation, and into his own “little project”, which is a quilt for Danni’s latest kid, and will serve Danneel fucking Harris right if said infant has to sleep under a lovingly puckered, blood-spattered rag which Jensen has personally donated many days of his life to cobbling together. 

They’re actually pretty great, the ladies, when they get to talking. And talking seems to be the purpose of quilting circles, with cutting and stitching taking a very secondary role. They’re a mixed bunch, because Venice attracts oddball tourists from all over, and they stick. The circle is an American foundation originally, and Gen’s mom sometimes helped out, way back, so Jared had exactly the right contacts to insert Jensen into this world. 

He’s not the only guy. He’s just the only guy under seventy. And he’s also the only guy who isn’t eyeing up the Signoras as potential second wives, he’s pretty sure. As, he suspects, the ladies know all too well, from the sidelong shared glances whenever Signor Borzoni and his sidekick Martinello (who Jensen isn’t sure even rates a ‘Signor’ in the eyes of the Signoras, on account of his barely even pretending to sew) show up. 

The fourth evening he’s there, which is Friday - and yes he has actually given up most of his week to this, when he’s not at the café or crashed out at home, trying to remember when he had a real life – they tell him about some of the past quilts. He’s caught references before, and this current masterpiece they’re working on is something charitable to sell for the public hospital funds, but he’s still dreading when they get to talking about the past. Because, you know, sewing history. The _fun_.

Except- Except the first quilt they ever made, this group of fine ladies and expatriate oddballs, was for some guy who lost his whole family in the war, when he was a partisan and they were killed, so unfortunately, by passing Allied troops who thought they had the woods free for some range-finding. And the foundress, long gone but long remembered, took the scraps of cloth he had salvaged from what had been his family home, and made them the centre of a peace quilt. 

And after that, the stories just keep coming. Jensen gets passed a bag full of offcuts and gently introduced to their former owners. Dead children. Dead lovers. Beloved parents. Children now grown, and gone, drugged into strangers, or simply thousands of miles away and known only through Skype. 

He holds one slippery thing, a tacky print in a stretch fabric, and Viola says, “Ohhh, Vito,” sadly.

“Such a lovely quilter,” says Signora Morodin. “Poor boy.” Jensen almost doesn’t want to ask, but she goes on. “We made one for him, of course, but we sent it to join the world quilt, so his name would be there with all the other lost boys. You’ll know about that, maybe? Though you’re so young, perhaps it was all before your time.”

He does know, though. “The AIDS quilt? Really?” He hasn’t thought of that for a long time. Didn’t even make the link to his struggles with needle and recalcitrant fabric to a story he heard so very long ago.

“Yes, dear,” says Viola. “So lovely, that it means something to so many, this business of sewing together memories.” 

Aldis is there, of course he is, with his camera zooming in, and Jensen’s not being funny right now, he’s tearing up, he knows it. These ladies are just- Surprising, he rationalises, trying to blink away the emotions and think away the thoughts. Surprising is what they are. Compassionate. Connected. 

He’s still thinking about it on Saturday afternoon, when he’s in Jared’s studio watching Jared working shirtless on a new piece. Which, Jensen is totally here for the sculpture. Yeah. Okay, the sculpture and being tired after an early shift at the café, and Jared’s studio catches the summer evening sunshine, which Jensen likes to lay around in, lazy while Jared’s busy, and letting himself think aloud. “They have stories, those ladies,” he starts, and talks. And talks. Jared hums and nods and contributes a little, but mostly squints at the ancient lead he has from a church roof in Austria and makes little movements to tweak at it, like they are deeply meaningful. Which, probably, but Jensen’s not the guy to see that, apparently. 

The sun is turning golden-orange when Jared stops knocking a tiny hammer into the side of one of the lead sheets and says, “Jen, you know you’ve been talking for, like, three hours about this?” 

Which is ridiculous. Jensen probably hasn’t _heard_ three hours of the ladies talking, and they aren’t even his stories. And yet, Jared’s right. It’s definitely aperitivo hour, and Jensen pissed away a whole afternoon telling stories. 

He parses that thought a while. It’s been a long time since he felt the power of a story that hard. “Jay?” he says, as they get themselves together to head down to Marco’s place before Jared has the hellish Saturday night shift in his tourist trap. 

“Mhmh?” Jared’s not discouraging, but he’s not noticeably paying Jensen much mind. 

“Why do I always write about men?”

Jared waggles his eyebrows, and gestures for Jensen to precede him. “I guess you like men. Which I think we all knew.”

Jensen snorts, and play-trips Jared on the way out of the front door, mock-wrestling him halfway across the Campo till they get distracted by the gang, who are likely onto second Spritz by now, if Jensen knows the social round here. Which he totally does. But Jared holds onto the stray thought long enough to say, “You think there’s something here, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” says Jensen, honest truth. It’s a step on from his idea of the stories of the anguished creator he was maybe thinking about. Something smaller, more bittersweet. Truer to life. He doesn’t know, ever, whether an idea when poked will unspool into a mess or tighten up into a narrative ball he wants to run with. But even to be thinking that way, now, is pretty special to him. He needs to keep on meeting with the ladies. Even if it means fucking quilting himself bloody some more. 

*

Jared was right about the way the episodes run just now. They’ve lost three contestants, so characters are starting to emerge from the mass, but it’s still a largeish group, and the producers are still winnowing them down with some lightweight tasks for the week. 

This week, it’s makeovers. 

“No fucking way,” is how Jensen greets this news, unfortunately on camera, but fortunately not live. “I mean, no way. N. O. Jared Padalecki is not my style mentor. I mean, I love you, man,” he says, lightly, and then wishes he’d found a different wording, “But- no.”

“Everybody’s doing it, Jen,” says his nemesis. And cackles. 

God, is there a lot of cackling in this episode. Seems like some of the other mentors are having fun with this task too, curse their souls forevermore. There’s a lot of weird offerings which seem a little more ‘reality TV friendly’ and a little less ‘mentor making genuinely helpful suggestions on a new look’. 

Jared suggests Jensen go for a full Italian beach boy look, or a true continental bespoke suiting experience (both of which Jensen has seen and does not want in his life, thank you, though in very different ways). And the last one, is just-

“I’m not even here in February,” he sputters. “It’s June! What kind of loser buys a Carnival costume in June?”

“My kind of loser,” Jared says, chirpily, and pulls Jensen in to kiss his ear. “Besides, you can stay as long as you want. You know that, babe.”

*

**Eighth Choice: Could Be The One**

Danni saves Jensen from the neon beach-dude look, but the viewers apparently think Carnival Venice is too good a chance to miss, even though it’s seasonally inappropriate to the point of dumb. And Danni cannot save Jensen from an _explosion_ of online speculation, because apparently nobody else has a mentor as handsy as Jared, and the internet thinks they are _just the cutest thing_ , and Americans visiting Venice are coming to Jensen’s café just to take photos, for fuck’s sake, which does them zero good because Jared would not be seen dead drinking here (mostly, not after he dropped by to torment Jensen his first couple weeks on the job, and that’s different and an exception Jensen can respect). 

So, the internet thinks they’re together. Which makes Jensen sort of happy (because, yay, the world agrees with him) and sort of resentful (because, world, that’s not happening _at all_ and fuck you for assuming you can make it so with your montages and cheesy photoshopping). Jared finds the whole thing _hilarious_. Of course he does. 

The better news is that Jensen is actually having a fun week. Work is kind of insane, now the summer tourist hordes are descending, but Jensen’s half-assed Spanish is even coming in useful at the café, and those English speakers that aren’t trying to snapchat him seem to enjoy having an American waiter. At least if the tips and the talk are anything to judge by, Jensen’s not so bad at this gig. He’s even pointed a whole bunch of people toward nicer parts of the city, smaller sights, quieter spaces, which has gotten him some of the biggest smiles of the entire time he has spent in Venice.

And then there’s Carnival shopping. Because obviously Jared would make this a big deal, and obviously Gen wants to come too, and _obviously_ it turns into a whole big group thing where they very seriously spend a whole evening waiting for Jared to get off work, trying to plumb the depths of Jensen’s psyche (would totally be easier in English, but he’s practising, so they have to cope as best they can with his fractured Italian, and he has to cope with their occasional bursts of Veneziano in return). Because, apparently, Carnival costumes are important and meaningful, and get passed down or along or around, and Jensen would scoff, but: quilting. (Apparently Jensen’s big reality TV experience is going to be a lesson in the significance of fabrics, which isn’t exactly how he expected it to happen, but whatever.) 

His friends are serious enough about it that Jensen passes the problem by the quilting circle too, and, yeah, they take it pretty seriously as well. “One can, of course, just wear a traditional domino and a plain mask,” says Signora Dottoressa Magari, doubtfully. “I know some _foreigners_ prefer it that way.” (The fools, she does not say, but Jensen hears it all right.) 

“No, no, no, no,” says Viola, dropping a pin in unprecedented agitation. “Carnival is all about being something one is not. I like to dress up as a lady of the night. Or, rather, I did. Someone very expensive, you understand, but very _available_.” There’s a look in her eye that Jensen’s going to find very hard to forget, though he’s absolutely going to give it a good shot.

“So, Djeeensen,” says Borzoni, cheerfully mangling his syllables as always, “What are you not? You could be… a pirate? A bold adventurer? A knight?”

“An angel?” says Viola, with a definite smirk. “It’s easy – choose yourself a trait you’d love to have, and then playact for all you’re worth. Sometimes, for the Carnival, you can convince yourself.”

Jensen thinks, and tries not to let the whole pirate/adventurer thing sting. He’s not a bold care-for-nothing guy, for sure, but he also doesn’t want to be rootless and lawless and whatever. Knights make him think of being done up in tin cans for hours, and that doesn’t sound sexy or fun at all. He doesn’t, honestly, have any sense he’s going to end up wearing this gear, but he doesn’t want something awful, just in case the programme makers come up with a gig. It’s a ways off yet, but he’s mindful if he makes it down to the final three, their mentors get to make decisions on things that are actually individual to their personal situations, not this weird churned out bit in the middle where everyone gets dumb generic assignments. Jensen can totally see a masked ball in his future if Jared has anything to do with it. So, no tin can armour, thank you. 

“What I really want is to be in love,” he says, and is horribly aware of a sudden that Aldis is here, filming this part. He’d kind of forgotten. But, hell, this was the main reason he joined the damn programme, wasn’t it? To get out of a rut, to find a guy. “Can anyone think of a famous lover that wasn’t, you know, doomed?”

“Oh, alas,” says the Dottoressa. “They are always doomed. Otherwise they aren’t stories. But they are very lovely. Abelard, perhaps?”

“No,” says Viola, quite firmly. “Not with the castration. Maybe a nice classical romance? Venus and Mars, or something? Or, maybe, David and Jonathan?” She winks.

Jensen pulls a face, ungratefully. “Kind of looking for a more equal relationship. And also not with armour.”

“No Achilles and Patroclus, then,” sighs Signora Morodin. “Such a shame.”

In the end, Jensen finds himself standing in the costumiers explaining that he’s looking for love, and a costume to reflect that, while kind of hating Jared, the quilting circle and especially Aldis, who is not even trying not to smile. 

“Arlecchino,” says the costumier, “Of course.” 

Oh _sure_. Harlequin pants. Just what Jensen wanted. His face must say as much. “Or, we have many masked costumes of gentlemen who _could_ be lovers,” says the assistant, “If sir wanted to put his own stamp on the role.”

Okay. It’s actually more than a little fun doing it this way, picking out a vaguely Renaissance costume (with tights, which actually, Jensen looks pretty good in, and Jared tells him so, loudly, and often), all dark velvet and silk, adding a heart motif right over his left nipple, which isn’t very accurate but whatever. Adding the mask just makes the role, and Jensen sweeps himself a full bow in the mirror. Which, actually, is harder than it looks and he staggers a little coming up, but the principle was good. 

Jared’s beaming. It’s nice, he’s been a little quiet this week, which Jensen wouldn’t have ever expected. Like there’s something bothering him, but he’s not choosing to share it. But now, he stands behind Jensen in the mirror, hands on his upper arms, kind of turning Jensen to show off the costume in all its mad, exciting glory. “Dude, I am so going to find a way for you to wear this for real. You’re a natural.”

“It’s kind of warm,” says Jensen, pathetically, because Venice in June is not a city for velvet, even nylon velvet. But he bows to himself again, and watches his mouth twist into a pure smile under the mask. No, okay, this is fun. He wants to live this. 

They tumble back to the apartment, on a high from fantasy, just for a few hours. Jared has to work but Jensen comes down to the shitty bar and stays for a couple hours, chatting with him between customers. It’s stupid, because it’s Saturday night and everyone’s busy, but it’s fun. He’s maybe a little drunk by the time they head home, having tried one too many of the overpriced prosecco-and-something cocktails that Jared hates making (it’s Jensen’s duty to help Jared get over himself in these matters), and he finds himself hanging on Jared’s arm, warm and close all down one side of Jensen’s body. He leans in, loving the feeling, wanting more. 

Jared moves away. Not subtly. Like, dropping Jensen’s arm from his, and stepping almost to the other side of the narrow alley. “Sorry,” says Jensen, stupidly, not able to cover, wanting to take it back and make it better but not sure what’s wrong.

“No, says Jared, which isn’t an answer. “Not- We’ll talk, Jen. Monday.”

Which sends Jensen spinning a little, because why Monday and why not now, and ‘not’ what, and he really did have too much prosecco for this tonight, but he wants to know.

He doesn’t ask. They walk the last five minutes back to the apartment in silence. “Do you want me to move out?” Jensen asks, while Jared fumbles with the door key.

“What? No!” Jared seems genuine about that, which is such a relief Jensen just lets it all drop and heads to bed. 

He isn’t working next morning, and it’s a little surprising to be woken by Aldis and Jared banging on his bedroom door around ten. “Fuck off,” he shouts. 

Aldis shouts back, “No, and say it nicely for the cameras, dude. Surprise!”

What. Jensen shouts, “Go away, I’m sleeping,” like a good dude who signed a no-profanity-if-possible clause, and then gets up because what the hell, he needs to know. 

“We’re headed out,” Jared says, looking sort of determined yet miserable, and Jensen starts to worry. Did he get thrown off the programme? 

But Aldis looks okay, cheerful enough.

Jared says, “I’ve got some guys for you to meet,” which seems pretty normal. It’s just coffee (and, for Jensen, brioche because last night’s prosecco binge left him with a hole in his gut and he’s, like, responsible about eating now). Tito and Martino are okay, Andrea seems a pretty cool guy, and an hour of coffee passes harmlessly enough. But not with any explanations, which freaks Jensen out. 

Back at the apartment, Jared cooks spaghetti vongole like he’s on autopilot, and doesn’t make little snappers out of the clam shells for his own sad, sad amusement, and there definitely is something wrong. “Jay, you have to tell me,” says Jensen. “Are they throwing me off the show?”

“What? No!” Jared looks outraged. And then sags. “Sorry, I can’t tell you. It’s just this week’s choice, is all.”

“Am I gonna hate it?”

“I hope not,” is all he gets, and Jared starts slurping down his remaining pasta like it’s some kind of gross-out endurance challenge. It makes Jensen laugh, because Jared just does. And maybe he doesn’t see a future with Jensen, but this way’s okay too. Just being dumb friends, if that’s all that’s on offer. Dumb friends in a fairytale city, where Jensen gets to dress up like a lost lover and laugh. 

He doesn’t want it to end. 

*

Late that night, he’s enjoyed seeing himself pose in the costume, and still hopes someone will come up with a way to wear that. Jared’s right, his thighs look fucking amazing in tights. But then he’s watching in dumb horror as Astrella laughs and jokes with all the mentors, new and old life, and sets up every one of the contestants on a blind date. Well, blind-ish. They’re supposed to judge the chemistry from those oh-so-casual coffee meetings that turns out everyone had today. 

Jared-on-film says easily, “They’re all good guys, but I guess I thought Andrea mighta had the edge. Seemed like Jensen really got him, you know?”

Jensen, dammit, does not know. And they aren’t filming him right now, so he looks over at Jared-in-real life, and finds him just looking sad. He shrugs silently at Jensen. It’s the show. That’s what they signed up for. 

Which is all true, and Jensen wants to take it back.

*

**Choice Nine: Spread a Little Happiness**

“Sorry,” says Jared. “They wouldn’t let me tell you – we were all told we’d get fired if we shared this one.”

“No, sure,” says Jensen, surprisingly miserable. He doesn’t like Jared keeping things from him, seems like, even though what the hell else Jared was supposed to do he isn’t clear. 

“Andrea really is a good guy,” Jared says, forehead wrinkling earnestly. The viewers apparently agreed with Jared that Jensen had the most chemistry with Andrea, and his backstory, of a long relationship broken down last year and hopes for finding lasting love, was just what Jensen would have voted for if he’d been following his own narrative. He guesses he should be gratified that they’re paying attention. 

But his votes were down – bottom three for levels of public interest, seems like – and Danni emails to tell him not to read the message boards because they are all outraged that he’s not with Jared. Which, Jensen honestly feels kind of the same. And Jared was willing, he thinks. That night coming back from the bar, that wasn’t just drunk Jensen getting the wrong idea, but it was Jared remembering that Jensen was supposed to be dating someone else this week. 

And, like Jensen, he’s not okay with cheating, even on a TV boyfriend. So they’re not going to discuss it, seems like. Not at all. 

Aldis comes over Monday, to tell Jensen he has two mandatory dates, but he can work out his own schedule around the café and whatever, just let Aldis know so there can be cameras. He looks sort of sympathetic, Jensen thinks. Like he also feels like this one isn’t working out for where Jensen is at. But he lets slip that this is likely another episode where they’ll lose the two contestants who get least interest, which going by last week could be Jensen. He doesn’t feel bad about it, not now. Being manipulated this way, even if it got him here, suddenly seems kind of sick. It’s getting between Jensen and a new life, or at least the first thing that has maybe seemed like the start of a new life.

But. He signed a contract, and he was in a phase of loving it till this week, so he tries to give it as much goodwill as he can. Laughs and jokes his way through a coffee date with Andrea, a long, safe distance from Rialto bars, and also far from home. Andrea really is a good guy, kind of shy but easy to talk with. He’s a journalist-slash-tourist writer (he makes a face, and says newsprint is dying, but tourists always need more bullshit, or words to that effect, and Jensen laughs a lot). Writers bonding. Makes sense. Jared picked a good guy for Jensen. 

He even opens up a little about his new project, which isn’t quite a project yet, inchoate ideas about how he might, just might, tell the stories of a quilting circle. Maybe include some from the ladies, with their permission, maybe make some completely fictional, but keeping that sense that material things matter, that memory can sing through scraps of fabric. It’s that part that Jensen loved learning from the ladies. Maybe he’ll include himself, too, an ingenu figure who gets unwillingly drawn in, and learns something. Or maybe not. Every real novel he’s tried to write has had a little too much of Jensen in it. This time, he thinks he’s found a story that’s bigger than him. 

Which is stuff he mostly says to Jared, not Andrea. To Jared’s back, because Jared has reached an allegedly crucial part of the creative process with his… thing… he’s sculpting, and says he can’t stop to talk a whole lot but is happy to listen. And it’s hot in the studio, so Jared’s working shirtless as he slowly works away at snags and corners, smoothing an industrial mess into something more organic. Jensen wants to touch. Yes, Jared, but also the piece, which is the part he shares. Jared smiles, pleased, but it’s fleeting. “Thanks man. Glad you see it.” And turns his back once more. 

Which… okay, Jensen gets it. Andrea’s a good guy, and unlike Jared, he’s not being paid to be a part of the programme. He really is looking for someone, and hoping Jensen might be it. Not fair to shit all over that just because Jensen already met someone who might just be _Jensen’s_ someone. Especially not when they haven’t said or done anything to make that real yet. 

So he watches Jared, gets way lower tips this week at the café which is probably a sign he’s moping, and lets it all out at quilting circle. Aldis hasn’t come to this one, since the whole find-yourself-a-comedy-hobby thing isn’t an episode focus now. Jensen feels pretty safe to be honest with them. 

“Oh dear,” says Viola, somewhere between sympathy and scorn. “Well, it does sound rather difficult, put like that. But put another way, you’ve met two very lovely chaps who might both be good for you, and don’t you think you’d better think about that some?” 

Signora Petroni says, “What I wouldn’t give for- It’s been years, Jensen. Years. Decades, nearly.” Which is way more than Jensen needed to know, and she isn’t even really a part of the quilting circle, last he checked, but apparently Jensen’s personal life is fair game to the ladies of a certain age in Venice, because nobody is trying to make her sew anything, or commenting on her being here. 

Signora Dottoressa Magari winks and says, “You must promise to tell us _everything_.” 

“Oh, God.” Jensen feels his cheeks burn. “Uh, maybe?” Meaning no, no, no, well maybe a little, but definitely not about the sex, if there is any sex because no. 

*

On Saturday, he takes Andrea out for a good lunch, or at least the ladies’ idea of a ‘good lunch’, which turns out to be kind of formal and very expensive, and has another really nice time. They really are compatible. Jared picked so well. At the end of the date, over coffee overlooking St Giorgio and the Redentore, full of the romance of Venice, Jensen says, “So, we should do this again, maybe?”

It feels right. He should give his new life a chance. Andrea is real, while Jared- Jared’s just an idea Jensen had of how things might be.

Andrea smiles at him, and kisses his cheek. “Sweetheart,” he says, “You’re great. But you’ve been talking about Jared for about an hour, and I think you should deal with that part before you try finding someone else. But if it doesn’t work out, call me.” He smiles again, kind of sadly, and walks out. 

Sticking Jensen with the bill, but that is totally fitting.

Shit. 

*

Jensen’s pretty tense by the time the programme starts late on Sunday night. Like, bad decisions time tense. 

“Jay… I’m not sure I should be doing this anymore,” he says, while Astrella talks her talk and introduces excerpts from the lives of the nine remaining contestants. 

“What?” Jared looks honestly shocked.

“I just- It feels really false,” Jensen mumbles. Miserably, because he doesn’t want to go. But. 

“No, man, you have to stay,” and Jared’s pretty intense about that. “Next week will be awesome. And- Well. I’d miss you, man.”

He squeezes Jensen tight, and Jensen thinks- Well. He’s going to let the viewers decide. But if they throw him out, he’s totally okay with it. He’ll give this maybe-thing with Jared a chance, in real life. 

The choice for next week is to do something for charity, and Jensen’s pretty much sure now that he’s going to get thrown out, so the options (lagoon cleaning, bachelor auction, helping disabled kids) pretty much pass him by.

But the other part of his section of the programme passes no one by. There’s Jared, talking bravely about what a good guy Andrea is. Bravely, because it’s an effort, and everyone can see it is. He says things like, “It’s hard to find someone good enough for Jensen, but I think-“ and swallows, so Jensen watches the screen as his Adam’s apple bobs and wants to _lick_ it. 

Aldis, the fucker, has spliced footage of them talking about each other, with romantic music in the background, and Jensen kinda wants to murder him but also, he can see where Aldis got that from, and he wants to cheer the evidence that they’re both into it, potentially. Conflicting, the whole thing.

Jensen talking to Andrea is awful, though. Watching the hope drain out of Andrea’s face on their second date makes Jensen feel genuinely guilty. He didn’t even notice that happen. 

“I’m a bad person,” he says, aloud, and Jared just nudges him, shoulder to shoulder. And then stays there, plastered to Jensen’s side, while the show takes its course. 

Jensen’s live section is quick, which is good because he’s pretty certain his face is on fire, as Astrella jokes with him about his non-poker face. “So, tell us,” she winds up. “Is it you and Jared now? Is that a part of your new life?”

His face flames harder, Danni shouts “YES, dammit,” so loud he’s pretty sure the viewers will hear that through his mike, and he shrugs. Because he doesn’t know. “Ask me next week,” he says. And that’s it.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Interlude: Chosen**

He doesn’t get thrown off the show. His choices get the most votes, most votes ever, in fact, and on Monday the production company is very pleased about that.

Jensen absolutely does not give a fuck. They head home faster than Jensen’s ever seen Jared walk in Venice, where the stroll is very much the pace, and where Jared’s easy-going nature has always seemed at home.

At their apartment door, he says, “You’re not gonna make me wait till next week, right?”

“Fuck, no,” Jensen answers, and ends up back to the door, kissing frantically. Except still outside the door, he notices, when one of the neighbourhood feral cats yowls at them in condemnation. “Inside?”

“Yeah, yes, yes, now,” Jared responds, confuddled and laughing, following Jensen closely up the staircase and still _touching_ him, which, is a lot of ass-groping for a first date but, again, Jensen absolutely does not give a fuck. He’s hard already, uncomfortably so by the time they finally get into the stifling apartment, and they have to spent minutes opening windows to get the slight night breeze going. But they’re shedding clothes as they go. Jared’s shirt in the kitchen, Jensen’s pants in the main room, shoes wherever, and the rest shed in a muddled, grappling mess between Jared’s bedroom door and (praise be) the actual bed.

“Been wanting this since I met you,” says Jensen, at some later moment, when Jared’s fingers are twisting inside him and he still can’t completely focus on the now because there’s so much he’s been failing to say. 

“You too,” says Jared, rolling on a condom and fitting himself to the notch of Jensen’s ass. “Been dreaming- Fuck, a lot, wanted you-“

After which conversation falters. But Jensen’s pretty comfortable the messages were sent and received both sides.

*

**Choice Ten: Take A Chance on Me**

Meanwhile, Jensen’s on this TV show, did he mention? He’s sure the next episode is going to be painful, because he doesn’t want the entire world watching his romantic life, but judging by comments from visitors to the café, there’s a whole lot of interest in how things are working out with Jared. He’s hoping they’ll be satisfied without any actual input from Jensen in the form of, you know, words. Because that feels like it might just shatter the fragility of this early relationship. Or maybe not, as the week rolls by, because it just feels comfortable, already, moving from his bedroom to Jared’s, where he never hits his head on the ceiling and never feels weird and out of place and lonely. Greeting each other with a mumble and a half-hearted snuggle when one or other comes home late or leaves early for their not-wholly-compatible working lives. He realises they were already intertwined pretty good, even before this. But now, it’s sort of official.

The viewers, or as Jensen currently likes to think of them, the _dicks_ , voted for him to take part in a bachelor auction, instead of doing something, you know, useful with his charity time. Which Jared says, he should be grateful for, because he’s writing. And quilting, and working, and, you know, actually having a relationship, so maybe spending the week out on the lagoon clearing litter from the seashores wasn’t the most practical option, but it would have been less awkward than this parading himself in front of a bunch of Italians who don’t know him from spit. Although Jared being Jared, Jensen is being auctioned as an escort to a masked ball – tickets included, on the production company. Now, he’s kind of buzzed to be getting to wear his Carnival gear at least. He hopes whoever bids on him just wants a fun night at the kind of event he’d never usually see.

Which is a thought he tries to hold onto, Thursday night, when he’s up on a makeshift stage in a parish house up in Castello trying to smile and squint through the lighting to work out who these voices are that are bidding on him. Because it seems to be going up and up, and he has a bad feeling there are, like, series fans out there, which could make this masked ball experience kind of terrifying. 

The bidding has reached almost 10,000 Euros, which Jensen thinks is _ridiculous_ for a no-name foreigner passing through Venice. Maybe the ball tickets are hard to come by? Who knows, but he’s freaking out a lot. He’s going to _kill_ Jared for this one, when he gets off shift. Putting Jensen up on an auction block and not even being here to tell him it’ll be okay?

“Dieci mille Euro,” says the auctioneer, triumphantly, and sounds like he’s about to gavel Jensen’s future off to- who? Some lady centre-back of the room who Jensen can’t see. It’s about now he wishes he knew some really rich person who could have bought him out of this mess. 

And it’s also about now that a voice Jensen definitely recognises, but which hasn’t spoken up today so far, shouts out, “Quindici mille!”

The auctioneer blinks, looks around, but apparently there’s no appetite in the room for more than 5000 extra Euros on Jensen’s book price. The gavel falls, and Jensen stumbles off the stage to find Aldis.

“What the actual FUCK?” is as far as he gets before Aldis waggles a finger at him and the camera, warning Jensen he needs footage. “What in heck is going on, Aldis? I know that was you bidding. What’s the deal, man?”

“Not me,” Aldis responds. “Buddy of mine who couldn’t be here.” Jensen looks at him, confused. Aldis has been here a while, sure, but he’s always seemed to be focused on the job. Jensen’s never asked about his friends (which seems, now he thinks, incredibly rude), and why one would want to meet _Jensen_ ….

Aldis punches him lightly in the shoulder, and then returns to filming, “You moron, it’s Jared.”

Jensen says, “Oh!” And he can feel himself blushing, and grinning and- Oh. It’s Jared. 

Then. “Hey, wait, he doesn’t have that sort of money to spare.” Jared just blew fifteen thousand Euro on a date with a guy he’s already dating? That’s _insane_. 

“You’ll have to ask him that, buddy,” says Aldis. And adds, “When he gets home. I’m gonna have to film that part, okay?”

Jensen nods. Okay. So, he might have to say something onscreen about this relationship, then. Like, quite a lot. 

*

Jared’s shift isn’t over till midnight, and he’s yawning when he stumbles into the apartment. Jensen has to work at eight the next day, and he wants to be asleep soon. And yet. 

Jared sees Aldis, and grins. “Went okay, huh?”

“Yeah. You owe Venice in Peril fifteen large, my friend,” says Aldis. 

“Jay-“ Jensen has a million questions, but finds himself hugging Jared instead. Just a hint of a kiss, too, smushed into his neck. Maybe the camera won’t catch that. Hah. He pulls away and says, “You can’t afford this. Also, you’re insane.”

“Sure I can,” Jared shrugs. “Got a roomie to share the rent, got my fee from this thing-“ A handwave at Aldis, still filming. “And I sold a piece, so… Anyway, you’re worth it.“

“You are such a _sap_ ,” Jensen bats back.

“Worth it to see you _in that costume_ ,” Jared says smugly. “I made you what you are, dude. I get the benefits.”

Jensen throws something non-fatal at him, which turns out to be an apple, which Jared bites into, saying, “Thanks, babe.” 

“Oh, hey,” Jensen winds back. “You sold a piece? Which one?”

“The Thing,” says Jared, grinning. 

“No _way_ ,” Jensen laughs, real loud and dumb, but the Thing is Jared’s problem child, from two years back when, “I couldn’t get my eye in”, and it’s sulked in the far corner of Jared’s studio ever since. Covered in a dustsheet, it is the weirdest fucking lurking thing, but it’s been on Jared’s website at some inflated price in the hopes some sucker will buy it. None of which Jensen says on camera, but their laughter and shared glance maybe tells the story. “That is awesome,” is all Jensen actually says, because what the hell, if The Thing is gone then Jared’s making sales, clearing space and also is taking Jensen to a fucking _ball_ tomorrow, and he’s going to enjoy it. “Oh, wait,” he realises, “You have time for this?” Jared always works Friday lates.

“I swapped shifts,” says Jared, like it’s no big, though he always professes to hate the slow morning hours. “Start at seven a.m.” 

It’s nearly one right now. “You know, if we’re gonna be awake for the fancy ball, we better get some rest,” says Jensen, nodding to Aldis. “Okay?” 

Aldis lowers the camera, and gives Jensen an eyeroll that tells him he knows exactly where that is headed and ‘rest’ isn’t how he’s expecting it to end. Which, he’s almost right, but both Jared and Jensen are tired enough that slow, lazy rubbing off against each other turns out to be all the night holds, and they’re asleep soon enough that morning might not feel like hell.

*

“Do you even have a costume?” is almost the only thing Jensen has time to say next morning, because everything is late and terrible and his brain feels like mush. Jared just cackles. Which is in no way reassuring. He spends half the day scared he’s going to a masked ball with, like, a ninja turtle, or whatever Jared’s sense of the ridiculous might send him. 

When he gets back from his café shift, Jared’s already home, with a note on the bedroom door that says, “Will knock for you at 7.30.” Huh. Like an actual date. Though also possibly like an actual nap, which Jensen appreciates. 

Dressing on his own in the unfamiliar garb takes more time than he really wanted, and he’s glad Jared emerges to open the door to a knock from Aldis, who bangs around the apartment like it’s his home too while waiting for Jensen to emerge. Which, when he does, he’s in full costume. Jared is _not_ wearing one of the more ridiculous possibilities Jensen’s had in mind for what Jared would consider suitable Carnival gear. He’s a masked cowboy. Which absolutely does not go with Jensen’s romantic historical lover vibe, but 100% does work with a few old, treasured fantasies from his steamy adolescent years. His mouth is probably open. Hell, definitely open. Aldis is snickering, the fucker. “Ready to go?” Jared asks, and crooks his arm. When they get down the stairs, they don’t head immediately for the Accademia bridge, which Jensen has down to a reflex now for anything happening in the other half of the city from their home. There are only so many ways across the Grand Canal, and he’s not a fan of the traghetti, so.

But not tonight. “Nope, this way,” says Jared, turning toward rio de la Toletta, which is such a little nothing canal they never usually have cause to pass it.

“Oh my _God_ , you hired a gondola?” Jensen actually shouts it. Gondolas are for tourists is like a mantra he’s picked up the last few weeks. Also, stupidly expensive. 

Also, not that romantic when the gondolier is Zacco, who beat Jensen at Ultimate back on Torcello, and is smirking even before he starts fucking singing (fucking singing _O sole mio_ , and Jensen supposes regretfully that throwing people into the canals is some kind of offence here, but he’s so very tempted). Also, Aldis is filming every moment, which again doesn’t feature on Jensen’s fantasy evening list. But there’s not much space in a gondola, and being plastered against Jared all down one side is doing okay things for Jensen’s morale right now. 

They don’t have far to go, just to the Sant'Angelo stop, and when they get out of the boat, Jared both pinches Jensen’s ass and whispers, “We’re totally walking back, don’t worry.” So Jensen’s pink and smiling when they walk in from the Grand Canal water gate, up the grand staircase, and into the one and only Venetian masked ball Jensen is ever likely to attend.

It’s- it’s hot, and people are dancing to actual dance music, old time stuff, and there are a hundred people Jensen doesn’t know, all masked, and for a second, it’s too weird for him to enjoy it. But fifteen minutes in, he’s being steered around the crowded dance floor by Jared’s confident if not expert hand, and getting outside a glass of something white and fizzy. Okay. He can do this. Though he’s pretty sure drinking on the dance floor isn’t how the classiest people do it. 

Jared lets him go after a while, and Jensen gets picked up by three unknown people, two women and one guy, and dances, blindly and badly, but smiling the whole time, he thinks. This is weird, but it’s pretty special. He small talks, and mostly understands the responses, and treads on toes, and cranes his neck to find Jared, which is not difficult, a cowboy dressed in denim not being among the top picks for costume at this ball. Also, he’s ridiculously tall. 

Jared comes to find him when a gong strikes, “There’s food, upstairs,” he says. “C’m on, I’m starving.” He nods to Aldis, who is half hidden by a drooping plant, looking sweaty and like he’s struggling for shots. “You want to film us on the stairs and take off? It’s not the best shooting venue.” 

Aldis actually looks grateful, which is unusual in such a pro, so Jensen doesn’t complain too much when he makes them walk repeatedly up a quiet part of the lower stair for, like, ten minutes before heading out. 

“Perfect,” says Jared in Jensen’s ear. “All to myself, now.” He pinches Jensen’s ass _again_ , and scoots off before there can be retribution. 

The food isn’t all that, but it’s enough to keep Jensen on his feet for another hour, and the wine keeps circulating, which helps with more unknown people dancing with him. He’s having almost a good time, he thinks, though it still feels unreal. But when Jared plucks him out of the throng to hide behind Aldis’s former pot plant, he is overwhelmingly grateful for a second. And then, as Jared presses him against the wall and ducks his head for a kiss, turned on. Pinned to a wall by a masked cowboy? Fifteen year old Jensen Ackles would be so happy. The current Jensen is pretty fucking pleased, too. 

“Wanna go upstairs?” Jared murmurs. “They have balconies.”

For a moment, Jensen seriously considers getting fucked on a balcony at a public party overlooking the Grand Canal. He’s almost up for that. But not quite. But it seems like Jared has in mind more kissing, mostly, with maybe some touching, and grinding, and- Okay, Jensen’s not going to be dancing with strangers for a while. 

“One last dance,” he says in Jared’s ear, “Then home?”

“You don’t wanna stay for the unmasking?” Jared mumbles back, but he’s also nipping at Jensen’s earlobe in a way he _knows_ is a serious turn-on, so-

They stumble through part of a dance, and then Jensen makes a break for the door. It’s not a long walk home, but it takes forever, pressing up against alley walls to kiss and touch and- By the time they’re climbing the apartment stairs, Jensen’s dick is sticky-wet and he _needs_. Jared’s outright moaning by the time Jensen is fumbling for their keys, and they barely lock the door before heading for Jared’s bed. 

“Wanted to do this since I saw you in the costumier’s,” Jared pants, sliding a hand under Jensen’s waistband and getting a finger into the notch of his ass. “Fucking amazing on you, these pants, and you look so _good_ , I wanted to dirty you up and strip you down all at once.” 

Jensen’s all right with that. “Keep yours on, though?” he manages to plead, while Jared’s starting to strip them both. 

Jared pauses long enough to smirk. “You like the cowboy, huh?” 

“Always.” Jensen dives for the slick and the condoms, and is working himself open before a moment’s passed. Jared is just watching, eyes hot, hand lightly gripping his own dick through denim. Jensen says, “Please, I need-“ because skimping prep is a decision he’s going with tonight, and Jared doesn’t let him down, _god_ he needed this. This slow, intense press, this building rhythm, and Jared’s eyes fixed on him, everything he wants right here.

*

After that, the show is kind of a let-down. Or, not the part where they totally show Jensen and Jared having an awesome week, clearly together, but the film of the masked ball isn’t anywhere near what Jensen’s memories of it will be. And the next challenge is kind of meh. 

Jensen listens, half-horrified, as the surviving contestants get challenged to do something they’ve never done before. There are a ton of terrifying things. Potholing, skydiving… heights. All heights. 

“I really hate heights,” is the first thing he says, and hides his face when Jared’s first choice comes up. Parasailing. The other choices are less terrifying: fishing and helping out at a Rialto market stall. Although, Jensen’s seen the Rialto get pretty fierce some days, and his Veneziano is still basically zero so language could be a problem. He tries to look enthused about fishing, and prays for Danni to exclude the worst option.

She looks at him right down the internet, and says loud and clear, “Jensen, I think you need to nut up and try something real. No way is fishing a new enough thing. I’m taking that off the table. And I hope you get to fly, babe.”

Jensen hates his friends. Quite a lot.

*

**Choice Eleven: Love in a Spin**

It’s not an awful week. Not at all. No week that involves this much of Jared and Jensen in bed together, defying all scheduling conflicts, could be awful. And they don’t completely drop out of the world. Jared’s working on the Thing, making sure it’s 100% fit to go out in the world and not disgrace its creator, and Jensen’s working out a chapter structure and a pitch for the book. Because it is a book now. He has a draft first chapter, and he’s almost ready to admit it could be a major deal for him. Or, he thinks so. It feels different. Not going to be the great American novel, no young man having an epiphany or fucking his brains out. Something he would never have read or written ten years back, perhaps. But he’s not who he was then, and maybe he never was doing more than pretending to be that guy. Maybe this is a story he wants to explore instead.

Jared says, “Hell, maybe it’s your masterwork. Maybe it’s your version of the Thing – you’ll come to hate it, but some sucker will pay you a ton of money for it-“ He’s trying to look cynical, which on Jared is about as convincing as a tutu on a sloth. Jensen in fact knows that Jared loves the Thing, and hated that the world wasn’t ready for it. Which, he’s hoping, isn’t the case with the quilt book. (Although the quilting circle seems unconvinced. “Us, dear?” was Viola’s reaction. “Oh, I can’t imagine anyone would be interested in a lot of old women. But, all the best.” She just has no idea what she’s shown Jensen. But he’s glad of that.)

But if nothing else comes from this adventure – and, god, he hopes something Jared-shaped does – Jensen has writing again. And he’s so glad. 

Meanwhile, the dicks, excuse Jensen, the lovely viewing public, have in fact voted for Jensen to go parasailing, and apparently nobody is worried about the heart attack that will inevitably follow. 

“You’re not that high,” says Jared. “And when you come down-“ for which Jensen mentally substitutes ‘fall’, “-you’re always on water. You’ll have fun, babe, honestly.”

Jensen does not tell Jared where he can shove his ‘fun’ but he does insist on having his company, which means they have to go parasailing on a Thursday morning as the only time the damn sports company can accommodate them and Jared and Jensen’s schedules give them a window. 

It’s almost July now. Warm, even to born and bred Texans. But not so completely warm that 8am in a wetsuit doesn’t suck. Even before some idiot ties you to a boat and tries to make you fly. 

Jensen fails, first, second, even third time. Aldis is starting to look worried. The footage must be nothing much. Maybe this’ll be the week when he has nothing to offer the viewers, and Jensen’s TV stardom will end with a fizzle. Maybe. 

Jared says, “Jen, just let go for once, maybe? I didn’t pick this out of the air. It’s freeing.”

The next time, Jensen flies. 

When he watches it back on Sunday night, awaiting the next challenge, he finds it isn't the most impressive thing he has ever seen. But at the time, it feels like freedom. They're way out in the lagoon, far away from the main islands, but he can see the campanile in the distance. He can see the mainland, that unknown, chemical-fog-belching foreign territory, terra firma he hasn't set foot on since he came to Venice. It feels far, far away.

Jensen’s okay with that.

*

Sunday night is odd. Jared’s tense again, all through the little sketches of the other contestants’ weeks. They’re down to just seven now, after a couple of double eliminations, weeded down to guys who have really caught the audience’s imagination. Some people are completely changing their lives. The woman who is training as a firefighter. The guy in Boston, who has dropped out of his professional role to work with homeless people in a substance abuse clinic. Jensen’s not sure how he fits in with this. Venice is weird and unlike anywhere else in the world, but he hasn’t exactly transformed himself. 

But maybe he’s a little more in tune with the programme-makers’ hopes, because the choice for next week is… more dating. Oh, great. Jensen doesn’t exactly swear, but Jared gives him a huge nudge and a meaningful beaming smile, like, honey, please stop scaring the viewers at home. 

Now that there are fewer contestants, they can at least talk over the choices some. Jared’s got back in touch with poor Andrea, because that seems to be a part of the format. And there’s some random new dude named Zorze, who is cute, but Jensen wants nothing to do with him. He’s heartened by other contestants also kicking back, saying they’re still working on the first dates, saying they don’t feel the time is right to focus on a new partners – basically, three weeks from the end of the show, everyone’s getting a little less format-respectful. 

Danni knocks out Andrea from the voting, saying, “He seems so great, but we all know he and Jensen aren’t meant to be.” Andrea looks pretty grateful, though he also manages to get out that he’s still looking for love in the Venice area if anyone is interested. Which is pretty bold of him, but perhaps he’s owed.

When it’s his turn, Jensen says, “I have to trust you guys at home to understand when I say for the first time, please don’t make the wrong choice for me. Please don’t waste my time, or Zorze’s. He may be the best guy in the world, but I’m with Jared now, and I’m happy.”

“Are you saying I’m not the best guy in the world?” Jared says into his ear.

“You’re kidding?” Jensen smiles back at him. “You made me do laundry, and you forgot to buy coffee this morning. You’re made of evil, babe.”

They kiss. Astrella is looking a little flustered when the cameras cut back from Jensen. “So- So an intriguing choice for all you viewers,” she says. Which, really, it’s not. Or Jensen hopes not. Maybe this is the week he loses out, too coupled-up to catch anyone’s attention. But he’s way past caring about all that crap. 

*

**Choice Twelve: Are You in for the Long Haul?**

It’s the hottest part of the year, and Jensen has learned to love having early shifts, because he can come home and sleep in the afternoon. Which, he has learned, is about the most Venetian he could possibly be.

It’s Tuesday, and last night the production company confirmed that the Great American Voting Public had decided not to put an embarrassing hiatus into his thing with Jared. In fact, the PA had sounded excited and impressed. “Highest vote ever. 95% wanting to see you go on dating Jared.” All that.

So Jensen’s lying in just his underwear, in a shuttered room, trying to catch some of the half-breeze that sometimes flows across the city this time of day, breathing shallowly and feeling himself sweat. Jared spends so little daytime in the apartment that even in high summer he still doesn’t bother with air con, except in the studio, but if Jensen’s going to live here, that is most definitely going to change. There must be someone in the city that can fit a unit. Has to be. 

His attention is half on how fast you might be able to fit at least a portable unit, given that it’s holiday season in a very laid-back city, but also given Jared’s excellent contacts. Half on where he’s taking Jared for their date, because it’s most definitely his turn to plan something big. But Jared’s not a big gourmet guy, and Jensen’s not taking him to somewhere that’s just for tourists. They’ve said some light night they’ll go up on the terrace at the Hotel Gritti and drink bellinis and fuck tourist snobbery, but that’s already a plan. He wants to charter a plane and fly Jared somewhere amazing, but he currently earns half a barista salary and yeah, no, even with tips. He’ll ask Gen what’s fun for hot summer nights, maybe something on the outer islands which won’t cost a fortune he doesn’t have. He wants Jared to have fun, more than making it some big TV spectacle.

A little of his attention (you know, exact math was never his thing) is on the possibilities for his book, the reason he’s given up on actually earning money enough for more than survival. The quilt book. He’s sketched out a full structure now, polished up that opening chapter, because telling the stories that the ladies have shared with him comes fluid and easy, unlike his clotted Great Fiction prose. It’s with his agent as of two hours ago. He hopes Holly can see where he’s going, not try to convince him to make it something it never will be, that she’ll have faith in his new direction.

There’s a tiny, tiny fraction of his brain which is also thinking, gratefully, about the viewers not messing up this time. But there are four more choices to be made. After this week (whatever this next goddam choice is), three choices that are going to be Jensen-specific, if he gets that far. Which, if the viewers are invested in him and Jared, is a possibility. So, four major choices still to come, ways to change his life for the future. And- Well. He’s thinking on that.

Apparently at some point he managed to sleep, because Jared wakes him after five, dripping cold water onto his belly. 

“Oh my god, you _dick_ ,” are Jensen’s first words to Jared, which maybe don’t match the kind of thoughts he was having before he slept. But he’s justified. “Why are you even here?”

“Aircon went out at the bar,” Jared says, yawning. “We’re down on customers, and everyone’s sweating like pigs, so we get an hour each to get out of there. I wanted a shower. And then I saw you, lazy.”

“Come down here and stop dripping,” says Jensen, and Jared’s blissfully cool and damp in his arms, which Jensen wants a piece of. He ends up sweating hard, rutting against Jared, messing them both up in a way that’s a little more than lazy, a little less than purposeful. 

“Mmmm,” Jared says, after, smiling at him for too long, till he looks at the time and, swearing, drags them both back into the shower, running tepid water over the mess they just made. 

“I sent it off,” says Jensen, resting his forehead against Jared’s shoulder, as the water dribbles between them, cooling and fresh. “The outline.” 

Jared kisses him _hard_. “Knew you could do it. She’ll see it’s amazing, you know that.” He unpeels them reluctantly, heading back to work. “Come by later? I’ll make you something to celebrate.”

The bar is sticky and stuffy, and altogether not the greatest place to be, ever, but Jensen spends the late evening with a bunch of Jared’s guys, nibbling on the leftover tramezzini and drinking something with prosecco and bitters. Jared’s working on it for the autumn, when the worst of the tourists are gone and innovation is back on the menu. Honestly, he’d rather have a Spritz, but hell, he can be a supportive boyfriend sometimes. 

By autumn, he could be gone, of course. That’s always been the case, since he started. But now, even if Jensen’s the best little reality contestant in the world, the show doesn’t have long to run. Two weeks, after this one, and then he has to make some decisions. It’s not only the stale sandwiches and bitters that make his mouth a little dry, maybe.

He’s relieved when Gen swings by, full of good ideas for a cookout on the back of the Lido, and helping to surprise Jared with it as his special TV date with Jensen. It’s good, telegenic, guaranteed viewer-fodder, but also something Jared will enjoy, something they don’t do too often. He scribbles a few numbers down, noting who can help him set this up for Thursday, when Jared has a night off, and lets Aldis know the plan. 

After a while, he realises he’s been ignoring Gen, who is looking too patiently at him. “Sorry,” he says, shrugging. “Kind of my job to fix this shit now.”

“I know. But not for much longer,” says Gen, and he realises (derp) that this wasn’t a chance meeting. “I need to know,” she says, “Are you planning on letting Jared down easy?”

“Not planning on letting him down at all,” says Jensen, stung. “The viewers may try to fuck it up, but-“ He trails off. They may, and he could be stuck with choices he wouldn’t make himself. For the first time, that actually frightens him. Before it was always a little weird, maybe a little inconvenient, but now? Now he has something to lose. Once the cameras go, what’s he going to be left with?

“Good.” Gen says it fiercely, stabbing a lone leftover olive with such force she splinters a cocktail stick. “Because he’s all up in planning for the choices for next week, and you have to know some of them aren’t stuff that would make him happy. That’s not how the production company want it.”

“Next week? You know what this week’s choice is?”

“Nope.” She sighs. “It’s a biggie, though. He’s pretty stressed, underneath it all.”

“He doesn’t have to be,” Jensen protests. “I won’t let it be bad for us.”

“You may not have a choice,” she says darkly. Then donks her head on the bar, lightly. “Sorry. I may be projecting some, too.” Gianni hasn’t been around lately. Maybe that’s for the best. But it’s clearly not what Gen wanted. 

He pats the back of her head, still downturned. “Sorry to hear that. Hey, maybe they’ll sell Fifteen Choices to RAI Uno and you can be a contestant too? They might send you to Alaska. It could be fun.”

She laughs, and raises her head, but her eyes are still sad, and she comes back to crash at their apartment that night. Which, Jensen can’t fix her. But he wishes he could. Maybe that’s how the viewers feel, when they see people making bad choices, and they get to fix them. Maybe some of them really care that Jensen gets out of this in good shape. With Jared. Maybe.

*

After the beach cookout, late and smoke-stinky, and light with happiness, Jensen kisses Jared all the way back to their apartment, frustrated by the slow chug of the vaporetto in the late night quiet; almost blasé about passing the Doge’s Palace and the Redentore by now. It’s just a bus trip, honestly. He’d rather focus on his guy. Aldis leaves them somewhere near the Accademia, his loud, “Okay, I’m outta here,” vanishing into the jasmine-scented night air. 

Jensen leans Jared up against the side of a small church, one he’s never even learned the name of, and kisses him in the moonlight. 

“I want you to know,” he says, “You’ve made me so happy the past few months. You, not the programme. Without you, I don’t think I’d have made it so far.”

“You’d have been awesome,” says Jared, full of confidence, but face turned away from the light so Jensen can’t see his expression. “Wherever they put you, you’d have had fun, at worst, and I think you’d have found something to write about, something new. You’re always watching, thinking about what you see. You’d have found something, whatever they did to you.”

“Maybe,” Jensen breathes against his warm skin, tugging kisses, “Maybe, but I’m glad I found you.”

There’s a tutting elderly lady passing, and a couple of the usual feral cats yowl at them as they stumble back to the apartment, but it’s still an almost perfect night. 

Gen’s right, though. Jared’s tense as hell. It’s not till Sunday night that Jensen finds out why.

*

“So…” says Astrella, eyebrows raised, smile poised, after the past week’s dating exploits have all been shown, “We have our final five. We’re going to give you one last choice tonight before the grand finale. Two of you will leave us tomorrow after the votes are counted. Three of you will go forward into your brand new futures, with three more big choices the viewers will make for you, that determine the course of the rest of your lives.”

Jensen tries not to snort aloud, but he can see Jared giggling at whatever his face is doing. Like hell. He knows, now, what he wants, and the voting public can only make his next few weeks a little awkward if they choose. He’ll be back here as soon as he can, if they try to pull something stupid. 

“How do you feel?” Astrella asks them each in turn. Challenged, excited, thrilled, brave – a raft of good words come their way. 

Jensen’s second to last. Listening to the others, he didn’t know what he was going to say, but it comes out fluently all the same. “Like I’ve found my home,” he says, and means it. It’s not so much Venice, though, god, he kind of loves the weird place, and he doesn’t want to leave right now. It’s Jared he’s talking to, and about, though. And the ‘nnnaaawww’ sound Danni makes after the camera switches back to the studio tells him that was all over his face.

“You know, we like to mix things up a little on Fifteen Choices,” says Astrella, beaming. “And we’re getting to the end of the road now.” Jensen swallows. That fear-flutter again. “So, from now, your old-life mentor has no more power over you. If you make it to the grand finale, your new-life mentor will come up with your three bespoke choices, but it’s all about what the viewers want for you from now on.”

She beams into the camera, wide and toothy, and Jensen suddenly doesn’t like her at all. This is a shock – Danni’s been softening all the choices for him, right from the start, and now he doesn’t have that protection. Jared surely wouldn’t come up with something truly evil for Jensen, but no one Jensen knows is in control now. And who knows what the production company’s been forcing them into. He could have to do anything, the next two weeks. What if they make him leave? Cancel his visa, send him home? Shit.

Jared slings an arm around him and kisses the side of his head. Which is when Jensen realises he’s come out in a nervous sweat. “Trust me,” says Jared, and Jensen does. But he doesn’t trust the situation. 

Especially when Astrella smiles again, and says, “Now, this is a very special week, because there’s only one choice, and the only options are yes, or no. It’s about getting a commitment for our contestants, after Fifteen Choices comes to an end. The choice is, do you stay another six months? That’s all. A yes, or a no.”

She talks some more over a montage of the five remaining contestants, their new lives, the things they’d be signing up for – rentals and contracts and whatever. Clips of each contestant from live show them all reacting to the choice: the sudden realisation that this is a real choice, one that will affect them way past the synthetic world of a TV show. 

Mostly, they want to stay. Shonda wants to leave her new life, because she’s still homesick, and Jensen kind of expects her to get voted out this week. That’s not so much a supportable narrative as people signing up for a new life. Or, like crazy Mike, saying he’d stay, or he’d move on again to somewhere even newer, less known. Mike will get through, Jensen’s sure. They’ll probably send him to fucking Ascension Island. Hah.

When his camera goes live, he shrugs. “Like I said, this is home. I want to stay. Please?”

Aldis tells him later that the look on Jensen’s face when he begs the viewers is up on the production company wall as one of the better reality show money shots they’ve ever had. Even as he says it, Jensen feels naked, too exposed by what he just said. But this shit matters. Too much for television. 

Jared looks a whole lot happier once filming is done, standing up and stretching his shoulders like he’s not carrying a heavy weight right now. Jensen wiggles his fingers at him, and says, “Go to bed, babe. I want to talk with Danni a little.” Which isn’t routine, but doesn’t spark anything with Jared, apparently. 

He also misses Jensen’s jerk of the head to Aldis, to stay, and Aldis’s quiet nod, like he knows what’s coming. 

The talk with Danni doesn’t take long. The call Jensen places to the production company lasts a little longer. The scene Jensen films with Aldis, longer still, so it’s deep in the small hours before Jensen gets home. He crawls into bed with Jared, who half wakes. “Just me, babe. Love you. Go back t’sleep.” Jensen smooshes himself against Jared’s back, though it’s way too hot for that even at this hour, and he sleeps too. 

*

**Twelfth Choice: The Big One**

The next night on Fifteen Choices is the usual half-hour elimination show, when contestants with the least number of votes get their elimination news, a montage of clips and give their last reaction shot – and the viewers at home find out what they’ve voted for the remaining contestants to do this week. This part of the format hasn’t been as successful as the Sunday night shows, and the production company are thinking of how they can tweak it for next season to make it more compelling. Shonda’s quiet acceptance of being voted off is a case in point; she’s just too okay with it, happy to be leaving at a time when she has everything she wanted out of the show. 

This time, though, they have a real draw for the second half, and it’s been trailed across all the previous programmes. Not so much in Venice, where Jared Padalecki is working behind the bar on a humid slow Monday as the clock passes midnight and the last dregs of tourists start to head home. His boyfriend, for some reason, is insisting they watch this episode, and he’s been half dipping into it as the last drinks are served. 

Someone from Milwaukee is drinking cappuccinos at this hour, in a way that’s making Jared twitch a little just from imagining Gen’s Nonna’s eyes if she saw this horrible coffee faux-pas. But otherwise it’s mostly Jensen with Jared, weirdly more into watching his TV self than usual. 

Astrella says, “And for our second elimination, something a little different.”

Jensen’s face fills the screen. He says, “Hi, I’m Jensen Ackles. I’m thirty-four, I’m gay. I’m in a really happy relationship with a great guy. I live in Venice, Italy. So that’s going great for me.”

Jared watched Jensen’s audition tape more than once. He knows what he’s seeing. 

Jensen continues, “I love good company. I love family. I’m a writer, but that doesn’t pay all the rent right now – though I’m hoping my new book is the best thing I’ve done. Meanwhile, I also work as a barista, because who doesn’t love good coffee?” He pauses. “I joined Fifteen Choices because I felt like I was stuck, and lonely, and out of my place. So why not let some strangers take over my life? And you know what? You guys at home, my mentors, everyone on this show, you changed my life. I don’t feel like any of that’s true now. I feel like I know where I am, who I am, what I want.” He pauses, and swallows. “And I don’t feel like I need you to make my choices for me now. Maybe this is the place I want to be forever. Maybe we’ll choose something else, longer term. But it needs to be us making choices, together. So I wanted to say thank you to all of you, most especially Jared, for changing my life. And, to most of you, I wanted to say goodbye now. You’ve been amazing.”

He swallows again, and adds, “But Jay? This isn’t goodbye. Not for as long as you’ll have me. Just- we get to make our own choices right now.”

The picture cuts back to Astrella, who is wiping away a fake tear. Jensen switches off the iPad. The bar is very quiet, which is lucky, because Jared thinks he might have dropped any glasses he tried to move right now. 

“Jen?”

“So,” says Jensen, real Jensen, not on a screen, no camera crews around. “I love you?” He sounds sort of hesitant, like Jared might not want to hear the words. 

Jared kisses him right there in the middle of the bar. The guy from Milwaukee whoops and takes a picture, which turns up on twitter in a nanosecond, but Jared and Jensen don’t find that out till tomorrow. And they don’t really care even then.

“You too,” Jared says, eventually. “So much.”

Because this is real life, they have to lock up the bar once all the patrons finally go home, and Jensen has an early shift which he wakes for like an angry grizzly after they stay up too late saying wordlessly what they’ve already said in so many words. They can’t get an aircon guy till August, Jared busts a knuckle packing the Thing for transit, and nothing about the next few days is a fairytale. 

It’s the best choice anyway.


End file.
